School for Thought

6 weeks, 32 students later, and less patience later, my “Vacacciones Utiles” is finally over....and I couldn’t be happier. Don’t get me wrong, I love the little kiddies, but they were definitely a lot to handle. Most days were great and I felt like I was really teaching them something, but other days not so much…so I would say it was more of a love-hate relationship.

My primary kids were my first headache, since I didn’t know quite what to do with them. I’ve never had much experience with little ones, and I was probably frustrated because I was trying to teach them too much. But once I let go of my dream of having them actually speak my language and instead focused on English vocab, things went a lot better, especially when I started incorporating drawing into my class.

While even though the kids loved their drawing time, I was amazed at their lack of creativity and not just in drawing, but when we played other games as well. I blame this partly on the school system here, since the basic formula for teaching here is writing stuff on the board and having the kids copy it down. That’s about it. So when I tell kids to draw whatever they want to draw, they ask me “How? What should we draw?” And when I answer, “be creative,” I get blank stares back. Most of the time, the kids would run and find a book to copy a picture from. I can’t tell you how sad this makes me feel, since I feel like creativity was all about my childhood through playing house during recess to making “bomb squad” videos with my swimming friends. I don’t know what I would have done without it.

My secondary kids were originally the class I looked forward to because I could do more advance stuff with them like verb conjugation and grammar, but eventually they became my new headache. At times I felt like I was a ring leader trying to control my wild animals! I believe part of that has to do with the fact that I don’t speak their language, and hence couldn’t always think of a good way to control their rowdiness, but the other part has to do with good ol’ fashion hormones. Ha. Yeah for those. A lot of my time was spent trying to stop the boys from annoying (aka flirting) with the girls and vice versa. Good Lord.

Things I learned through my first go-through with teaching English? Simplicity is key. Flashcards are a god send. Never underestimate the joy of Bingo. And 5 days is waaaaay to much.

I am definitely thinking of continuing teaching English in my town, since there is no English teacher to speak of, but I think it’s going to be on my terms this time. One to two times TOPS a week, and the teacher better be there in attendance to quiet down the students.

So that’s about it. I survived my first time being a teacher. All those times of pretending to be a teacher growing up finally paid off. But overall, I’m pleased with how things. Even if my kids didn’t learn any English, at least they got to do something different and have fun in class, and I suppose in the end, that’s all I could ask for.