Day 2

Today was our second day in the "Argupamiento de escolas santa maria Maior". We spent the day visiting the E.B. 1 do Carmo which is the Primary School where the students from 6 to 10 years old go and the E.B. 2, 3 Frei Bartolomeu dos Mártires where which is Middle School (from 10 to 15 years old). 

We started the day with a tour of the E.B. 1 do Carmo facilities. Nelma, who is an English and CItizenship teacher and librarian, showed us  the building. The school was founded 75 years ago but the building was refurbished two or three years ago. 

Then we met Carlos who is the Primary School coordinator. He made a presentation of the library and explained how the school works by showing us a video which describes the philosophy of the school and so on. We also had the opportunity to talk with both Carlos and Nelma about their school system and compare it to ours. 

After that we attended an English lesson with the class of 4th B. Caterina who is an English and Spanish teacher was working on the topic of food with these students. They were practicing vocabulary and they watched the story of The very hungry caterpillar by Eric Carle. 

In Portugal students start learning English at the age of 8 in 3rd grade. I found it quite shocking that they start so late. Catarina told me that it was very difficult to start at that age. Another aspect that I found relevant is that they have a textbook full of exercises in which there are no songs or listening or speaking activities. In other words, all the activities they do are written grammar and vocabulary. 

In the session that we have been able to observe, apart from correcting homework exercises and listening to the story, they have cut out the images of the vocabulary of the story and have pasted them according to what the caterpillar in the story eats every day. 

Then we moved to the Middle School building where Nelma and José, who is the sub head teacher of the school, did a presentation of the library. 

After that we went to have lunch and we assisted to a French lesson with Rosa who was teaching 8th grade students in the library. They are carrying out a project in order to promote the learning of French language subject as it is an optative subject for the students and there were few students who chose it. 

The project consisted of recommending books in French and recording 2 minute videos so that  they could encourage other kids to join the subject and read books in french. So, in the lesson we saw today they were preparing those videos in groups by making a brief summary of them so that later on they could record videos acting like booktubers.