Jan Term Day 4: 13 Jan 2017

¡Hola Everyone!!!

Our site for our first lesson in San Cristobal, Dominican Republic.

Today on January 13th, we went to the Esuela Nacional De Sorsomundes the school for the Deaf where we did our first teaching lesson in Dominican Republic.

When we first got there, we introduce ourselves in front of the 15 deaf students that were there. Once we all finished introducing ourselves, Dottie and Mark Rust did a skit about being archeologist digging fossils of dinosaurs.

Starting the lesson on fossils and dinosaurs.

Once they finished we split up into our teaching groups (three groups of five) to present our lesson for the day. The groups were split according to ages:  1. Young kids 2. Middle kids 3. Older kids. The range of the students were from age 4 to 14 years old.

Brielle and Alecia’s group made imprints of fosssils. Laura and Sierra’s group did a skit about fossils and dinosaurs.

Ali, Rebecca, and I taught four common words connected to dinosaurs: carnivore, herbivore, Jurassic period, and Creatous period.

Erin being introduced to the class.

We introduced 8 different dinosaurs with facts, the periods they lived in, what kind of food eaters they were and traits of each dinosaur. We had 2 games, the first one was a card on students’ heads describing each dinosaurs. The second one was describing a handshape (HS) story using the HS 1-5.

I noticed during my lesson time the younger kids were really excited about our lesson! I like how they were really involved; they melted my heart when they were super interactive with my lesson.

As we were leaving the school, everyone was waving the regular sign goodbye, but I was signing the I love you sign to them as goodbye and they signed it backed to me! My whole reaction to this experience while teaching them was incredible knowing the students were really receptive and understanding of the lesson presented to them. I was really amazed on how quickly they learned the material!

Having a great morning!

Tonight at dinner we ate at the Manolo restaurant where we met Alan who created the National Sports Association for the Deaf. He had some good stories to share. Also, we learned tonight, from Alan, when it’s time to eat, one should knock once on the table, which none of us knew. It was really interesting to know.

We also taught our waiter sign language a little bit, like thank you, finish, enjoy and applause. It’s really wonderful to see other than deaf Dominican people learn LESDOM to be part of the culture and community.

I cannot wait to interact with other deaf students at different schools for the rest of the Jan Term!!!

¡Gracias!

¡Adios!

-Erin Holtz