for the last 45 minutes of my last class today, i was forced to teach all 40 students of 6th A, and i made the poor decision to play a game with them. let´s just say that my throat hurts from yelling at the same boys over and over. then stupidly enough, i made it a boys vs. girls competition. i forgot how preteens get so into these kinds of things. i´m sure the surrounding classes heard each group´s team chant. oh goodness. these kids were already going crazy, and they were even more locos during the game. but what was i to do? i wasn´t prepared to teach all 40 kids. my coteacher thrusted the responsibility at me when the director of the school once again made her film something with her tape recorder.
my most important lesson thus far since i´ve been here is the need to be flexible and ready for anything they might throw at you. already, i´ve either had my classes cancelled or i´ve had to teach all 40 students of a class by myself (instead of half the class for 45 minutes, and then switch groups for the last 45 minutes). on thursday and friday, i´m most likely going to have to teach the entire class by myself once again for the 5th, 6th, and 8th grade classes i have those days. my coteacher has to go to a 3-day conference in Conce, and the school doesn´t like to call for substitutes if it´s not absolutely necessary. me aprovechan, as they would say. ugh, well, however annoyed i may be, i´m just going to flow with it and let it be. i´m not one to stress out and raise a ruckus. i know i can manage an entire class of 40, though it may be a little messy.
all in all, after 1.5 weeks of teaching my own class, i´ve been having a great time. i´ve been doing a lot of interactive activities with my students, and i have the feeling they´re just not used to performing skits or throwing a ball around to designate taking turns. i can tell they´re enjoying themselves, and that´s my primary goal for now...for them to be excited to come to english class with me because then will i effectively capture their attention.
Wednesday, April 23, 2008
Wednesday, April 9, 2008
¿cachai?
i´ve been at Escuela República de México for 3 days now, and i feel like i´ve just been so lucky to have been placed here. i feel so lucky to be placed with my AMAZING host family as well!! everyone here has been SO WARM, tan cariñosos, tan amables...especially the students! with every step i take in the school hallway, i hear a "hi miss," "hola miss," and many times i´ve been surrounded by students who all want to greet me with a kiss on the cheek (which is my favorite part of chilean culture, or latin american--and filipino!--culture for that matter). i´m soo going to bring this back to america. i´ve realized how cold and distant the american culture is, in comparison!
i haven´t started teaching my own classes yet; this week is reserved for observing my coteacher´s (who is also my host sister btw) english classes. and good lord does she have a lot of classes that she teaches! she works about 45 hours a week!! she teaches multiple grades, primarily 5th-8th grades, but she also teaches 2 3rd grade classes, 2 1st grade classes, 1 2nd grade class and a kindergarten class. she is seriously mi heroina. in fact today, she didn´t even have a lunch hour! during the normal lunch hour, she had to teach the 2nd grade class. she literally only had 10 minutes to eat her lunch before she was off to teach another class of 40 rowdy students. teachers are overlooked EVERYWHERE in the world! moreover, in the chilean public school system, teachers rotate from class to class, not students. there aren´t enough funds or resources to provide a classroom for each teacher. i, however, will have my own english sala because it was mandated by the ministry of education. one requirement the participating schools had to fulfill was provide the english-speaking volunteers a classroom of their own. i feel pretty bad about this, but what can i do? undoubtedly, this is going to make my job a lot easier...in addition to the fact that i will be teaching 20 students at a time, instead of all 40.
in the classes i´ve visited this week (along with many more to come at the end of this week), ruth, my coteacher, has had the students individually stand up and introduce themselves to me. each would repeat the script, "hello, my name is __________. nice to meet you," and i would respond with the obvious "nice to meet you too." as redundant as this might sound to us angloparlantes, this is nonetheless such good practice for my students because i´ve realized how poor their english speaking skills are and that they have little confidence in speaking english. and their comprehension skills? even worse as you can imagine. i am adopting an ENGLISH ONLY attitude with all my students, in which i only speak to them in english, even if they speak to me in spanish and don´t understand the majority of what i am saying. during the question/answer session each class has had with me, i rely heavily on gestures and drawing pictures on the board to make myself understood, which i gladly can say has been really successful! it´s very challenging i have to say, and i´m sure even more so next week once i start teaching on my own, but i am confident that they will get the hang of things. starting day 1 next week, i will fervently demand, ENGLISH IN (the classroom), and SPANISH OUT. i am determined to improve my students´english oral and comprehension skills...and i am damn excited to start.
Hoy día, agradezco a (today, i am grateful for)...
mis alumnos (my students) for all the lovely cards and posters and pictures and constructions they´ve made for me, welcoming me to the school. all my student´s besitos. their enthusiasm for learning english! making myself understood, speaking in only english to them! my kind and warm colleagues. my amazing host sister/coteacher, who i absolutely love! she always has a smile on her face, even when she´s exhausted. my host sister's support of my relationship with edgar, and understanding my need to talk to him every day. for edgar, and his love for me. i am sooo glad he is so positive and is doing so well! and seeing how productive he´s been! all our phone conversations and feeling more confident in strength of our relationship. the lovely presentation ceremony the school held to welcome me to the school and introduce me to the students. the welcome snack the teachers planned for me today in the teacher´s lounge. FEELING SO WELCOMED! talking to adrianne on gchat the other day. receiving an email from june. hanging out with the other 4 gringuitos of chillán 2 days ago. seeing jason! la fiesta del chivo! a "that´s so raven" by one of my cute chubby students. being overfed. palta (avocado). too much tea and coffee (i am served friggin 5 times a day!). drinking the tap water here and feeling okay. my oh so kind 70 yr old host dad and the funny way that he repeats things. properly using the word "fome" in conversation. speaking spanish.
i haven´t started teaching my own classes yet; this week is reserved for observing my coteacher´s (who is also my host sister btw) english classes. and good lord does she have a lot of classes that she teaches! she works about 45 hours a week!! she teaches multiple grades, primarily 5th-8th grades, but she also teaches 2 3rd grade classes, 2 1st grade classes, 1 2nd grade class and a kindergarten class. she is seriously mi heroina. in fact today, she didn´t even have a lunch hour! during the normal lunch hour, she had to teach the 2nd grade class. she literally only had 10 minutes to eat her lunch before she was off to teach another class of 40 rowdy students. teachers are overlooked EVERYWHERE in the world! moreover, in the chilean public school system, teachers rotate from class to class, not students. there aren´t enough funds or resources to provide a classroom for each teacher. i, however, will have my own english sala because it was mandated by the ministry of education. one requirement the participating schools had to fulfill was provide the english-speaking volunteers a classroom of their own. i feel pretty bad about this, but what can i do? undoubtedly, this is going to make my job a lot easier...in addition to the fact that i will be teaching 20 students at a time, instead of all 40.
in the classes i´ve visited this week (along with many more to come at the end of this week), ruth, my coteacher, has had the students individually stand up and introduce themselves to me. each would repeat the script, "hello, my name is __________. nice to meet you," and i would respond with the obvious "nice to meet you too." as redundant as this might sound to us angloparlantes, this is nonetheless such good practice for my students because i´ve realized how poor their english speaking skills are and that they have little confidence in speaking english. and their comprehension skills? even worse as you can imagine. i am adopting an ENGLISH ONLY attitude with all my students, in which i only speak to them in english, even if they speak to me in spanish and don´t understand the majority of what i am saying. during the question/answer session each class has had with me, i rely heavily on gestures and drawing pictures on the board to make myself understood, which i gladly can say has been really successful! it´s very challenging i have to say, and i´m sure even more so next week once i start teaching on my own, but i am confident that they will get the hang of things. starting day 1 next week, i will fervently demand, ENGLISH IN (the classroom), and SPANISH OUT. i am determined to improve my students´english oral and comprehension skills...and i am damn excited to start.
Hoy día, agradezco a (today, i am grateful for)...
mis alumnos (my students) for all the lovely cards and posters and pictures and constructions they´ve made for me, welcoming me to the school. all my student´s besitos. their enthusiasm for learning english! making myself understood, speaking in only english to them! my kind and warm colleagues. my amazing host sister/coteacher, who i absolutely love! she always has a smile on her face, even when she´s exhausted. my host sister's support of my relationship with edgar, and understanding my need to talk to him every day. for edgar, and his love for me. i am sooo glad he is so positive and is doing so well! and seeing how productive he´s been! all our phone conversations and feeling more confident in strength of our relationship. the lovely presentation ceremony the school held to welcome me to the school and introduce me to the students. the welcome snack the teachers planned for me today in the teacher´s lounge. FEELING SO WELCOMED! talking to adrianne on gchat the other day. receiving an email from june. hanging out with the other 4 gringuitos of chillán 2 days ago. seeing jason! la fiesta del chivo! a "that´s so raven" by one of my cute chubby students. being overfed. palta (avocado). too much tea and coffee (i am served friggin 5 times a day!). drinking the tap water here and feeling okay. my oh so kind 70 yr old host dad and the funny way that he repeats things. properly using the word "fome" in conversation. speaking spanish.
Friday, April 4, 2008
Let´s learn English!
About 40 of us Inglés Abre Puertas volunteers in our corny but snazzy "Let´s learn English" tshirts.
Chillán
Por fin estoy en Chillán, my home for the next 8 months. Yesterday, I arrived with 4 other WorldTeach volunteers by bus from Santiago, which took about 6 hours. right when we got to the bus terminal, we were met by 3 nice ladies, one who was the school directora of one of my group member´s school. they told us that they were going to take us straight to la escuela república italia, an escuela básica (kinder-8th grades), where they were going to hold a ceremony for us! we were stunned and in no mood to meet a ton of people because we were so tired. the ministry of education warned us that this might happen.
we got to the school, put away all our heavy luggage in the office, and waited for about a half an hour for the ceremony to begin. meanwhile, i started to realize what an event this was going to be. for one, there was a journalist in the office with us, talking to us for a bit. she was going to write an article about us in the local paper. we also met some of our directores of our school, which translates to school principals. some head honchos also came, like el jefe of all the schools and la directora of the department of education here in chillán. not to mention, everyone seemed to be wearing their finest attire. meanwhile, i was wearing black sweatbants and a tshirt with robots on it. i came to my senses and decided that i should at least change into jeans.
then it was finally time to enter the auditorium. we ended up walking down the aisle to the tune of that sting song that goes "on the fields of..." (i was never quite sure how he finished that lyric). and there were photographers galore! i´ve never had so many photos taken of me, save for my sorority days. they sat us right in the front row, treating us as the honored guests as we were. it was so amusing! there were speeches welcoming us, and some of the students of the school danced the cueca, a traditional chilean dance, for us and even invited a couple of us to join them on stage. thank goodness i was saved from the embarrassment. it looked really fun though.
then there was this formal meeting of our host families and coteachers, in which us 5 were individually called onto the stage and were then joined by them. luckily for me, my host mom/sister is also my coteacher (she prefers being my sister bc she´d feel old if i called her my mom, although she´s in her mid 40s). of course, more pictures were then taken. after the ceremony, i was met by a throng of students who i soon realized were some of my future students! they were so cute and so excited to meet me! i took some pictures with them, which i´ll hopefully post soon. one asked me how to say 5000 in english and then another asked how to say it in japanese, easily fooled by this asian face. i feel like this won´t be the only time.
my family is sooo nice btw. i pretty much hung out with my 70+ host dad (host sister´s dad) all day today, whose birthday coincidentally falls the day after mine. i foresee a joint birthday party coming up. i had to take care of some important tramites (errands), ie. register my visa and apply for an id card, and he accompanied me and showed me where to do all that. fortunately, vivo cerca del centro de chillán, where all the important buildings are and the fruit market. and omg fruit´s so cheap here! we bought 2 kilos of grapes for like 2 bucks! unheard of in the states! there´s no surprise though of course since they´re so plentiful here. and chillán is such a cool city! it has all the luxuries of a big city but also has that small town feel. i don´t know my way around just yet, but i don´t think it´s hard, even for directionally challenged me.
i start school on monday, which i´m really excited about! next week, i´ll just be observing classes, helping out my coteacher in the same classroom, but the following week i´ll be on my own. i´ll be in charge of like 12 classes a week! though it´s more like 24 classes bc we´re dividing each class for 45 minutes at a time. i´ll be teaching grades 5th-8th, which has 3 classes per grade, about 40 students per class.
we got to the school, put away all our heavy luggage in the office, and waited for about a half an hour for the ceremony to begin. meanwhile, i started to realize what an event this was going to be. for one, there was a journalist in the office with us, talking to us for a bit. she was going to write an article about us in the local paper. we also met some of our directores of our school, which translates to school principals. some head honchos also came, like el jefe of all the schools and la directora of the department of education here in chillán. not to mention, everyone seemed to be wearing their finest attire. meanwhile, i was wearing black sweatbants and a tshirt with robots on it. i came to my senses and decided that i should at least change into jeans.
then it was finally time to enter the auditorium. we ended up walking down the aisle to the tune of that sting song that goes "on the fields of..." (i was never quite sure how he finished that lyric). and there were photographers galore! i´ve never had so many photos taken of me, save for my sorority days. they sat us right in the front row, treating us as the honored guests as we were. it was so amusing! there were speeches welcoming us, and some of the students of the school danced the cueca, a traditional chilean dance, for us and even invited a couple of us to join them on stage. thank goodness i was saved from the embarrassment. it looked really fun though.
then there was this formal meeting of our host families and coteachers, in which us 5 were individually called onto the stage and were then joined by them. luckily for me, my host mom/sister is also my coteacher (she prefers being my sister bc she´d feel old if i called her my mom, although she´s in her mid 40s). of course, more pictures were then taken. after the ceremony, i was met by a throng of students who i soon realized were some of my future students! they were so cute and so excited to meet me! i took some pictures with them, which i´ll hopefully post soon. one asked me how to say 5000 in english and then another asked how to say it in japanese, easily fooled by this asian face. i feel like this won´t be the only time.
my family is sooo nice btw. i pretty much hung out with my 70+ host dad (host sister´s dad) all day today, whose birthday coincidentally falls the day after mine. i foresee a joint birthday party coming up. i had to take care of some important tramites (errands), ie. register my visa and apply for an id card, and he accompanied me and showed me where to do all that. fortunately, vivo cerca del centro de chillán, where all the important buildings are and the fruit market. and omg fruit´s so cheap here! we bought 2 kilos of grapes for like 2 bucks! unheard of in the states! there´s no surprise though of course since they´re so plentiful here. and chillán is such a cool city! it has all the luxuries of a big city but also has that small town feel. i don´t know my way around just yet, but i don´t think it´s hard, even for directionally challenged me.
i start school on monday, which i´m really excited about! next week, i´ll just be observing classes, helping out my coteacher in the same classroom, but the following week i´ll be on my own. i´ll be in charge of like 12 classes a week! though it´s more like 24 classes bc we´re dividing each class for 45 minutes at a time. i´ll be teaching grades 5th-8th, which has 3 classes per grade, about 40 students per class.
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