I just finished my first week of being an elementary school English teacher in Ecuador. Whew I am tired. I am teaching Quinto, Sexto, Septimo, and Octavo, which translates to fourth, fifth, sixth, and seventh grades, because kindergarten here is called primero. All of the teachers at my school go by their first names, and students call us Tia or Tio (aunt or uncle) depending on our sex. I love being called Tia Becca, because Krauss is a name I share with my family. Becca is my own, and I feel like my students (and the kids I worked with in Chicago) are asking for me personally, when they call my name. I have also never felt old enough to be called Ms. Krauss. Maybe I never will.
In terms of my classes, think I have a fairly good grasp on how to teach my fifth, sixth, and seventh graders, but I am definitely grasping at straws with my fourth graders. Part of this is that their English is way lower than it is supposed to be at present, so they get bored when I'm giving directions because they don't understand me. They always speak to me in Spanish, and since I don't understand them, they are easily discouraged. Although I created models for all the activities we did in class, I am still learning how to effectively give directions so that my students understand and participate. Every day I thought I'd created a better model and method to give directions so that my students would understand, and every day my students got bored and start talking to one another, and playing with toys that they brought to class. I learned today that my students should not be bringing toys to class (I wondered if this was cultural and maybe I was somehow being insensitive by asking my students to put away their toys), and that I need to be sending messages home to their parents if this persists. My administration has told me that this class is fairly immature, so we need to use as much parental reinforcement as possible concerning their behavior. One perk of working in a private school is that there is a lot of parental involvement.
I really do like my quinto students, despite the fact that they don't listen. They are so tender. They always want hug me when they come in the room, or when they see me in the morning or after school. The girls always want to touch my earrings, my hair, or my scarf. The boys always ask me about watching Ecuadorian soccer. One boy in particular, who has almost no English speaking skills, asked me my name on the first day, and has taken care to learn how to pronounce it correctly. When his homeroom teacher called me Rebecca one day, he very quickly corrected her and told her my name is Tia Becca.
Outside of teaching, my life is only sort of coming together. I still do not have housing, and the kitchen in my hostel is currently under construction which has made eating a little bit precarious. I have gone to friend's apartments and such for meals, but I am not invited all the time (nor do I want anyone to feel the need to invite me to eat every meal with them), so sometimes my dinners consist of cheese and crackers. I have eaten out a fair amount, but that also gets expensive. All the other international teachers have worked out their housing situations already (they had more time as they were able to make it for orientation), so I am kind of on the fence. There is a new group of English teachers coming to work for CEDEI English, the English tutoring school for adults that is associated with my school, but it will be another week until they arrive. This situation is a test of my patience, to say the least, but I am working on trusting the process and accepting that this is somehow part of the plan.
Hopefully I will be posting pictures in my next blog entries, so you can all see my classroom, etc.
No comments:
Post a Comment