ミタイ・ミタクニャイ子ども基金（以下、ミタイ基金）支援者の皆様、初めまして。
今年の夏、パラグアイ現地インターンとして働かせていただくことになりました藤谷碧(ふじたに みどり)と申します。アメリカのガウチャー大学というところで学んでおります。これから約一ヶ月の間、現地から近況報告をさせていただきます。
Hello all the supporters of the Foundation of Mitai Mitakunai (the Mitai Foundation).
My name is Midori Fujitani. I will be working as an intern of the foundation for the next month. I am currently studying at Goucher College in Maryland, the United States. I will be reporting all the activities and my experiences from Paraguay.
今週はミタイ基金との学術交流協定のあるUniversidad de Nihon Gakkoスタッフの協力と共に Municipal Maria Auxiliadora (以下、Maria Auxiliadora)と、南米にあるスラムの中でも最貧困の一つとされるカテウラ地区にあるLa Escuela Cerro Poty (以下、Cerro Poty)で英語のクラスを担当させていただきました。これから毎週、英語の授業を両学校で教えていきます。
This week, we visited and taught English at two schools: Municipal Maria Auxiliadora (Maria Auxiliadora) and La Escuela Cerro Poty (Cerro Poty). I would like to thank Universidad de Nihon Gakko, a local partner of the Mitai Foundation, for making these visits possible. I am excited to continue working with this great institution for the next month.
今週は英語のアルファベットを勉強しました。事前に準備したワークシートとパワーポイントを使い、各アルファベットの発音と、各アルファベットに関連する英単語を紹介しました。
One of my jobs is to teach English at Maria Auxiliadora and Cerro Poty every week.
This week, we learned English alphabets. Prior to the lesson, we had prepared two worksheets and PowerPoint slides to introduce the pronunciations of all the alphabets and vocabularies that are associated with the letters. For example, we used Apple as an example of the letter A.
子どもたちは最初、慣れない発音や初めて見る単語に苦戦していましたが、スペイン語と似ている部分があるため、少しずつですが発音・単語を取得していました。
来週は基本的な挨拶、日常で使われている単語を幾つか紹介しようと考えています。
At the beginning of the lesson, students were having trouble pronouncing the alphabets and the vocabularies. However, since Spanish and English share some similarities, students gradually made some progress and were able to say some of the words by the end of the lesson. We will continue teaching English. Next week, we are planning to teach some greetings and more vocabularies that are used in daily conversations.
Maria Auxiliadora はパラグアイにある一軒家を学校として作り直したという雰囲気の小さな学校です。各教室は９〜１０人程の生徒がやっと入れるくらいの大きさでした。幼稚園から６年生までがここでは学んでいます。しかし教室が足りないこともあり、５・６年生は同じ教室で学んでいます。先生も各教室一人という体制です。
Maria Auxiliadora is a very small school that hosts students from preschool to sixth grade. It seemed as though a small house was rebuilt as a school. There were three classrooms in total. Each classroom was very small that can barely accommodate 9 to 10 students. As you might have guessed, there are not enough classrooms for every grade. At Maria Auxiliadora, each class was multi-grade, meaning that students of different ages/grades study in the same classroom. For instance, students of fifth and sixth grades were studying in the same classroom. Also each classroom had only one teacher.
Cerro Poty はMaria Auxiliadoraと対照的に、大きな建物の中に４つのクラスを構えています。しかし各教室というものがなく、４つのクラスが隣同士に勉強している状況です。建物の構造上生徒の声が響きやすく、常にザワザワしているという印象でした。Cerro Potyでも違う学年の生徒が同じ教室で勉強していました。今回小学４年生のクラスで英語を教えたのですが、生徒の年齢層がとても広く驚きました。一番下が１０歳であるのに対し、一番上の生徒は１５歳でした。
Cerro Poty校長マリオ・ゴンザレズ(Mario Gomzalez)さんの話によると、カテウラ地区に住む子どもたちは母子家庭・父子家庭で育つ子どもが多く、親の虐待・薬物依存等の問題を抱えています。来週現地を訪問する際、学校の周りを視察する予定です。
Cerro Poty is a school located in Cateura district. This area is one of the poorest slums in South America. Cerro Poty had a big building that has four classes. However, the school did not have rooms to provide an independent classroom for each grade. As a result, each classroom was located next to each other. Due to the structure of the building, students’ voices were echoing loudly and being distracting for students. Cerro Poty also had multi-grade classrooms. The range of students’ ages was even wider in Cerro Poty than Maria Auxiliadora. For example, we taught English to the fourth grade. The youngest students in the class were ten years old, while the oldest were fifteen years old. After the lesson, we had an opportunity to have a talk with the principal of Cerro Poty, Mario Gomzalez. He told us that many students are from families of either single mother or single father. He also said that some parents abuse their children and have drug/alcohol addictions. We did not get to visit other parts of Cateura and see some households during this visit. We will continue our research in this area.
