Teaching English

When I first started planning my trip to South America and looking for volunteer opportunities, I knew that the one thing I didn’t want to do was teach English. I wanted to do something closer to social work. The closest experience I had had to teaching was giving presentations to classrooms and organizations on domestic violence and healthy relationships. As it turns out, my favorite part of volunteering has been teaching English. It’s a great way to connect with people. The extra bonus is improving my Spanish. In the mountains in Ecuador, it was a time of laughter while we taught the six women basic English phrases and were able to incorporate “social work” themes like feelings, health, family, and dreams. In the jungle in Ecuador, my favorite moments were the ones that were spent with the elementary children, teaching them songs and doing activities. It made them think in a way that was different from the repetitive drill style they were taught their other subjects. Many of them told us it was their favorite time of day.

My whole point is that I have loved teaching English. Here at Carmen Pampa, I love being with the fifth semester Ecotourism students. Last night it was clear to me how much they had learned in our short time here working with them four nights a week and during the weekly four hour class that we assist with. We have been working with them for about a week now on forming questions. Last night’s activity was to write two questions and then in small groups ask each other the questions. One girl, who at the beginning of our time here didn’t know the word “he” and many other basic elements, was writing her questions and getting them almost correct and then took the time to write extra questions to get my input. When the time came for the class to end, neither my group or Kirsten’s group got up to leave. Kirsten’s group asked her if they could do one more round. My group was asking me questions in English about myself and then asking questions about different things they wanted to know about.

Last Thursday evening, we went to watch our students play Futsal (a popular game here similar to soccer but played on a basketball court) and Kirsten and I sat by some of our students and talked with them. We talked with them in a mixture of English and Spanish and it was fun to see them using their English outside of class. A couple of them have commented recently about how something clicked recently and they really want to learn English. At one point, I asked Lourdes why she chose to study Ecotourism. She told me (in Spanish) that she loves the conservation part of tourism. She said that it’s important to conserve nature for the future of the people and that this is the biggest challenge that Bolivia is facing right now. Her answer was long and beautiful and unlike some of the “I need a job” responses I have gotten. Lourdes is one of the students who seems to have learned the most while we have been here. Last night she stayed after class and she asked me questions about words and phrases she wanted to know and then practiced it with me.

Reyna, Lourdes, Me, and Marilyn after the Futsal game

Also that evening we shared an emotional goodbye with Marilyn, who was leaving early for Holy Week because her family lives far away. Marilyn is the student who cleans our volunteer house. The students here make the average wage of 30 Bolivianos (about $4.35) a day with an on-campus job. Every Monday, one of the volunteers makes lunch for her and whoever is in the house eats with her. During this time we have gotten to know her more and help her with her English. She is a shy and quiet girl but over time she has really started to experiment with her English. During class last week, she handed me a sentence she had been working on in her notebook: “Can you give me your email address?” Later she wrote another sentence: “We be the homesick.” I helped her look in the dictionary for the word “extrañar” which means “to miss” or “to be homesick” and somehow the less commonly used translation was listed first.

I’ve also enjoyed my other English teaching experience with the Pre-university students. I only had a couple classes with them but it was fun. The purpose of the class is to help them develop some English so when they start at the university next year they will be at the same level as other students. I was amazed at how at the end of five classes we were still working on the verb “to be,” but to give them credit there are a lot of uses of this verb and we worked on sentence structure and vocab with it. We have noticed with both classes is that the students are at very different levels. Some of the students here know the basic things and others don’t even know “hello” or “I.” It’s hard when some of them don’t know grammar rules in their own language, such as what an adjective and a noun is. I can’t help but think of the kids that we taught English to in Ecuador as they were learning to speak Spanish as a second language and the school system wasn’t very good.

My favorite moments with the Pre were when we were playing a game where I would tell them something in Spanish and they had to write the equivalent in English on the board. The students here love competition and it helps to make learning more fun. I kept messing up and telling it to them in English and they got a good laugh out of it. It was also fun when we practiced sentences like “I am thirsty,” “I am sick,” and “I am in love.” Between the funny feeling on the tongue, the funny sound it made, and the meanings of it, the class couldn’t stop giggling.