Teaching week one

Yesterday I finished my first week of teaching! Since I do not yet have a place to live in Meliplla, I had to commute from Santiago—which is about an hour and a half each way. I arrived Tuesday morning to show up for my new job, without knowing virtually ANYTHING. For some people this would be a nightmare. I just have to go with it, because this is Chile and things just don’t function like they do in the States. As TIPS (Teacher Intern Practicum Specialists), we received little training. Well, there was one week of ‘training’ but it we really didn’t receive any of the most necessary info. All I knew showing up was what time I had classes. Other than that, I had no materials, no syllabus, and no information on pretty much anything regarding course content. Not to mention that no one in the administration speaks a word of English, and the English director (who is in charge of us) actually works at another campus. (I just learned today that he quit. So…now we have no director). But I went in and I can luckily speak some Spanish, so I was able to figure out some things. My first class, Ingles Basico, is at 10am and the students are all learning to be auto mechanics. Needless to say, their level of English is not exactly outstanding. They were rowdy, but respectful, and if I told them to be quiet, they would—at least temporarily—shut up and listen. I let my classes go 20 to 45 minutes early, because it’s the first week, and we have no materials. I teach three classes in a row (2 basic, one intermediate) in the morning and then two in the evening, finishing at 10:45pm. I get a 4.5 hour break in the afternoon, which will be really nice when I am actually living in Melipilla. No complaints about my schedule, I have the best one out of anyone. Tuesday and Thursday, that’s all! So I have a 4 day weekend every weekend. Awesome. Anyway, my evening class consists of auto mechanics, whose level of English is lower than I thought humanly possible. If you surveyed Americans, I’m sure 95% of them would know what ‘gracias’ means. Well, my students in this class did not know ‘thank you’, they had never seen the verb ‘to be’ or ‘to have’ before, and struggled with the alphabet. They will be a challenge. I later realized that many of them have probably never studied Spanish before, and have no idea how to make sense of what I put on the board. I cannot be any clearer though! I translated everything and conducted most of the class in Spanish, but that didn’t get through to everyone. They see a bunch of words, but even with the translations have no real idea what it means or how it fits into real life speech. I don’t want to be negative, especially since these auto mechanics are quite motivated, but I seriously doubt many of their abilities to pass this class. Most of my other classes are a pleasure, and the students know just enough to make my job doable.

Overall, it was a good week. Thursday was even better, and I felt more confident, yet I still am only writing things on the board and having students repeat. This could get old fast. If I had some materials or access to a free copy machine, things might be different! However, I did play a numbers game with most of my classes, and they really enjoyed it. They got really into it. So at least they are having fun—that’s the kind of teacher I wanted to be.