The long promised...

teaching update.

Fittingly, I am finally writing this blog after the teaching program has ended.

Overall the teaching project was an incredible experience. I'm actually fairly certain that I learned more than my students! I had no idea just how difficult English grammar is! Along with my students, I learned the rules (and MANY exceptions) behind the present simple, present progressive, present perfect, past simple, past progressive, past perfect and future tenses! And this was just skimming the surface of all the grammar tenses we have!

 My teaching partner, Laura (a 20 year old girl from Denmark) and I had to read up on all the rules for these tenses, decide how we wanted to approach each tense with the class and then create worksheets to practice the tenses. In all honesty lesson planning was the most difficult part! My usual day went a little like this:

We always started off class with a descriptive writing prompt either reviewing the previous day's grammar, vocabulary or giving our students a creative writing assignment. We mostly started class off with this because our students NEVER arrived on time! (Occasionally, I felt like I was working with kids and not adults! - I forgot to mention our project was teaching teachers English. Sometimes I thought that it would have been easier to work with kids!) At the end of every week Laura and I would take home their journals and correct them.

Every week we sang a new song with our class to practice pronunciation and increase vocabulary knowledge. One week our song was  "Here Comes the Sun" by the Beatles. We talked about the the sun represents happiness and peace. One day our writing prompt was "Look at the lyrics to 'Here Comes the Sun'. What in your life brings you peace and happiness?"

These were some of the responses:

Luci: In my life it is very important the friendship with God and with my friends. I feel joyful when I sing for God in the Church.I think it is better to arrive peacetime for all the world. The peacetime is when all the people live as brother.

Julia: The sun in my life brings happiness and work with enthusiasm. Too, I can play with my children in the park and swimming in the pool. But the sun can be dangerous for it is necessary to use caps and ointment for the sun. (Apparently she didn't completely understand the prompt but her answer gave me a good chuckle!)

Ramiro (My favorite answer - at least what I can read of it. He has nearly illegible handwriting! It remind me of my father's writing!): The sun is the life and the hope of a new beginning. When the sun beams, all it's right. ...the fields full of flowers, birds, beautifull animals and a wonderful smell in the air it and new energy to my life. ...I love the sky blue, the mountain green, the forest full of sweet fragancys, the white clouds crossing the sky, the birds flying and singing beautiful tones, that is the life for my.

I couldn't have been happier when I read all their responses! While filled with spelling and grammar errors, they wrote beautiful responses!

After our descriptive writing we would delve into grammar (not my favorite part of the day!) It was a tedious process explaining all the different grammar structures and this took up a good portion of the class but they caught on quickly and we were able to progress through many more tenses than I thought we would.

My class
Left to right: Juanita, Alicia, Laura, Julia, Ana, Me, Magdeli, Luci, and Ruth.
Ebert is kneeling in front.

Once grammar came to an end, we would introduce new vocabulary ranging from emotions to verbs to anything else under the sun. Vocabulary was always a hoot because we would play games to reinforce the words and they would ALWAYS cheat! (This is part of the reason I felt like I was working with kids!) They were SO competitive but we had a good time.

Generally twice a week, Laura and I would write stories to do listening and reading comprehension. I have to say that this was quite the exercise in creativity for me! But it was much better that we wrote them because we could cater the stories and comprehension questions to their abilities.

We always ended class singing a song. This was my absolute favorite part of class! Unlike in my Spanish class where when we sang a song in Spanish everyone just mumbled my students actually sang! We sang everything from "Heroe" by Enrique Iglesias to "Imagine" by John Lennon to "Smile" by Uncle Kracker.

My class really struggled with pronunciation so the last few weeks we began practicing tongue twisters. It was absolutely hysterical! It took all my will power not to crack up when they would attempt to say "Sally sells sea shells by the sea shore," "Purple paper people put pink pants on," or "Five brave viking fought ferocious vultures." One day one of my students, Ebert, challenged me to do a tongue twister in Spanish - "Tres tigres tragan trigo en un trigal." I conquered that one. :)

After six crazy weeks, classes came to end. It culminated at the Ministry of Education where every group gave a presentation. My class wrote a poem that they read. My favorite part was at the end Ramiro had written a surprise stanza in which he referred to Laura and I as "beautiful butterflies." After they read the poem, our class called Laura and I up and gave us each a rose and a beautiful necklace! I was so incredibly touched! They worked so hard over the past six weeks and I felt like a proud parent to see them up there reading a poem in English that they had written!

On the last day of class, we gave them a mini test. We had to take a few home to grade and when I was going through them I received this as a nice and comical surprise:

The teaching project was truly a gift. For one, I now know that I do not want to be a teacher! But it also taught me lessons in patience and lead me to have a greater appreciation for all educators. Kudos to all my teachers! I don't know how you do it, but THANK YOU!

A few other updates:

Ariana is still living with us. Nimia went to a judge with her and the judge ruled that she should go to an orphanage because her father is extremely abusive (all the police officers where Ariana lives told Nimia not to let Ariana go back home because they are well aware of his drinking problems and violent behavior.) Ariana refused to go home and didn't want to go to an orphanage so Nimia, being the angel that she is, sought out temporary custody of Ariana.

Now that the teaching project is over I leave tomorrow for Huyro where I will be working on an archaeology and community project. They're even going to let me use a machete! I don't know who thought it would be a good idea to let me wield a machete but I'm sure after the first day they will revoke that privilege!

Huyro is essentially in the middle of nowhere so I'll be incommunicado for a little while but I will let you all know how my machete experience goes when I am back!

One weekend we went river rafting (which I highly recommend!) and
Kayla somehow convinced me it would be a good idea to jump
out of the boat! It was absolutely freezing but SO fun!

Peru is so incredibly beautiful I can't even describe it! This is a picture
from the most beautiful hike I have ever been on!

No Puedo Olvidar

I swear I actually am working here, but here’s the thing – truly incredible things just keep happening that distract me from writing about my teaching adventures.

Sometimes I just cannot believe how truly blessed I am. Today is a prime example.

But first, I have to back track a little. In my last blog I wrote about Yolanda and how her arrival sparked a heart-wrenching conversation with my host mom. I regret to inform you that Yolanda did not return to the house. Instead, Theresa took her place the very next day.

After Yolanda left, I expected that we would get a new girl to come help out. What I did not expect was a third girl, which was the situation I walked into when I got home today…kind of.

Nimia is starting a new business and posted an online ad for ladies in other cities to help her spread the word and sell the product. Low and behold, a woman called Nimia up yesterday saying that her twelve year old daughter had run away and did not want to come home and could Nimia please give her daughter a job. Nimia, being the absolute sweetheart that she is, brought the girl home.

So at dinner tonight I got a glimpse into Arianna, the twelve year old girl’s, background. She is the fourth of eight children, but the oldest passed away earlier this year so now there are only seven. She absolutely loves learning and communications (Spanish grammar) is her favorite subject (Quechua was her first language). Arianna ran away because her father is extremely abusive and she refuses to return to that hostile environment. I never would have guessed that this intelligent, chatty, bright, YOUNG girl would be running from such a situation as she exudes such confidence. Sadly, tonight is the only night I get to spend with her as Nimia is taking her to child protective services tomorrow.

However, at dinner tonight I was trying to talk to both Theresa and Arianna as Luciana and Derek are out of town so it gave me a chance to get to ask them questions. While both looked to Nimia to repeat what I said before answering, they were quick to respond and I could tell they that both have an invested interest in their education. Theresa actually starts school in March at a nearby collegio (secondary school) which Nimia will pay for in exchange for Theresa working at the house on the weekends. She seems very excited to start school (a pleasant surprise compared to most American kids [myself included] response to having to start school).

 Finally, Nimia looks at Theresa and goes “Don’t be shy! If you have any questions, ask her!” Then Nimia turns to me and says “Theresa wants to learn English.”

Immediately, I see Arianna’s face light up as well.

So I asked the girls, “Well, after dinner tonight do you want to learn some English?”

They both nodded vigorously.

And so it goes. After dinner I went upstairs and grabbed all my extra scratch paper from class along with my assorted colorful pens (red, blue, pink, orange, purple, and green to be exact – I never leave home without an array of colorful pens!) and brought them down to the dinner table.

I started off with lofty goals. “I am going to teach them to put together a proper sentence,” I thought to myself. So off I go trying to explain how “to be” is an irregular verb and is Spanish there are two verbs (ser and estar) that translate to this one English verb. I got blank stares in return and realized that I was talking to twelve and sixteen year old girls and that this was their first English lesson. So I asked them, “Well what do you want to learn?”

Without hesitation Arianna shouts “numeros y colores!” Now this is mostly because she already knew a few colors and numbers in English. Regardless, it was a solid starting point. We quickly progressed from numbers to colors to body parts to foods, family, animals, clothes, things around the house and then various adjectives, emotions, and verbs. We covered a lot for one night but they wanted to just keep going!

To be honest, I tuckered out before they did! (In my defense, this was my second English lesson for the day!) When I finally checked out (at 11 – nearly two hours after we started this English lesson) they stayed downstairs and continued to write more words often (accompanied by drawings) using all my colorful pens (I swear using different colors helps you learn more quickly and efficiently!)

In the middle of talking about body parts, Arianna got up and started shuffling things around. A few minutes later, she came out carrying a cd and put on music for us to listen to while they learned a little English to (a girl after my own heart – I ALWAYS listen to music while doing my homework!) Occasionally she would stop writing whatever she was working on, look at the cd case and pick a new song. Once, she looked up at me and asked, “Sabes la cancion ‘No Puedo Olvidar’?”. I told her I didn’t know that song, so she played it for me.

No puedo olvidar. I cannot forget.

How this little twelve year old girl who is suffering in ways no one should ever have to could possibly have known how picking that song to ask me about would touch me, I do not know. What I do know is this - no, no puedo olvidar esta noche ni esta experiencia…no puedo olvidarte. 

Arianna's Notes on Body Parts and Colors

Arianna and Theresa working away at the kitchen table!