I've been teaching in Loja for just over 6 weeks now so it's high time I wrote some thoughts on how I feel about it and how the whole experience is going so far. My typical teaching day involves waking up at 9.30 ish (no alarm needed, lovely), lazing around for a while reading or watching Los Simpsons, then heading to the market for around 11 to meet my 'morocho lady' and practice some Spanish with her. This is basically a nice innocent lady who serves morocho (a drink made with milk, maize and vanilla and which tastes like rice pudding) and empanadas (puffed up pastry goodness with a sweet filling) and has the patience to put up with my fairly feeble attempts to speak Spanish with her. I've even started getting some benefits of being a regular in the shape of a mango and a grilled plantain with cheese that she's given me out of the goodness of her heart. I think she's just being nice rather than grooming me for anything but I guess you could be forgiven for thinking otherwise.
After that my spanish start today continues with my free daily Spanish class run by René, the boss of the centre, which is a really nice gesture that he didn't have to make. This usually finishes at 1pm, which leaves me with an empty couple of hours before lessons start. In this time I either trek 15 minutes up the hill to our house for some hammock time, head into town to argue with the lady in the post office, or idly half plan and make some copies ready for the afternoon lessons.
Then at 3pm the madness begins. I start off with a group of hyperactive 7 to 9 year old who are definitely the 'learn by doing' kind, and every new word or phrase has to be accompanied by an action. This is very tiring but fun, especially when they have to mime such words as poison apple or skydiving, and I watch as they writhe on the floor after eating an imaginary apple or strap their backpack on, climb to the top of a chair and jump off.
I then have 10 minutes to run down the stairs quickly, file the folders for the previous class, find the folder and work for the next class, and 'relax' before running up 2 flights of stairs for the next lesson. All my lessons finish at 5 to the hour, and the next start at 5 past the hour so it's a very hectic schedule with no real breaks in 6 hours.
The next set of students at 4pm are all 11 to 13 year olds are almost too well behaved and I struggle to find enough work for them. I've decided to make that work in my favour and we will now be reading a book whenever work is done. Easy peasy.
It's just as well that those students are well behaved because the next set keep me on my toes big time. At 5 o'clock I have 13 to 15 year olds and at 6 o'clock I have 16 to 18 year olds. The 5 o'clock students are mostly more interested in taking pictures of each other than in learning language and the 6 o clock students have a lot of university work and usually turn up to my class halfway through, if at all. I have had difficulties getting them on my side but I find that making yourself stupid is as good as a way to endear yourself to the students as any - a break free moment with my young teens came when teaching adverbs. I shook my limbs around to demonstrate 'he is walking stupidly' and now every class ends in a plea of 'teeeacher, bailar!' as they ask for me to repeat my stupid dance. Bizarrely, I think their respect for me went up, rather then down, after that moment. Although they test me at times, all it takes is for me to glance out of the window at the view beyond the classroom and things don't seem so bad (see below).
Then comes the highlight of the day, my adult class. It may be a bit dull to read about but they are a joy to teach, and we have much more fun than I do with any of my children's classes. I also often find that I'll plan a 'childish game' which won't go down well with my kids classes at all, but which my adults will find absolutely hilarious. The 20 minutes I spent with my adults playing 'simon says' spring immediately to mind... In a strange twist of fate they now have me speaking Spanish in the last half an hour of the Friday lesson. Well, if they want to pay to help me with my Spanish then it's fine by me. There are plans in place for them to show me the 'pubs' of Loja this Friday so there's a cultural exchange that I'm definitely looking forward to.
All in all I'd say I'm enjoying the teaching, and there are more lessons that I walk out of with a big smile on my face than cursing my luck at being stuck with a certain set of kids. I think I went into it with a certain naïve notion that teaching in a third world country would involve rows of obedient children sitting cross legged 10 minutes before you arrive and then hang on your every word like their lives depended on it. The reality is that you get many of the same types of spoilt 21st century kids that you get in English schools who don't realise how lucky they are to have this opportunity for extra English help that a vast majority of the country can't afford. On the other hand, I'm not that old myself and I know at their age I was just down the park playing football after school and you'd have struggled to make me go to extra English classes every day after school, so I can sympathise with a bit of moodiness! It's definitely a challenge that I am more than up for though.
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| Empanadas |
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| Two of my little 3 o'clock rascals with me on Halloween |
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