Primeros Libros!

by Ian Fraser

The 2013 Guatemala trip marked Librarians Without Borders’ first attempt at delivering our lending instruction session. We had two groups of students, grades five and six. We were scheduled for a half hour but ended up spending about 45 minutes with each group. The sessions went really well and the students were enthusiastic about the prospect of borrowing the books and taking them home.

I was feeling a little anxious beforehand, because my Spanish skills are pretty basic. Fortunately, fellow volunteer Sarah was able to facilitate well in Spanish.

The session we delivered had three parts. We began by asking the students some questions about how they used the library and what they thought about borrowing books. The questions raised the issue of caring for the books when they are checked out of the library and remembering to return them.

To review the borrowing process, I did a short theatrical demo while Sarah probed the students for each step.

We then moved to the other side of the library for the final part of the session. This was an activity that had the students complete a storyboard by filling in the text boxes. The students loved this and both groups really took ownership over the story. The highlight for me was when one student suggested the boy in the story was named Ian. The others agreed and in the end they named their story “Ian y el libro interesante”.

It’s so great to see these sessions come together after all the pre-trip planning. I’m excited to see how the other sessions go with the other age groups.