Friday, June 22, 2007

First Peruvian class experience

I´ll start by claritying that I went to Danielle´s birthday party the other not, not Daniel´s. Sorry I don´t always have enought time to edit before I get kicked off the computer.
Yesterday I had my first meeting with a Peruvian class. I´m in a group of three people and I am the person that speaks spanish the best in my group. Because of this, I was down right terrified that we were gonna get up infront of this class and I was gonna have to do most of the talking. Well, the day didn´t go as well as the other two were expecting, but I some how knew that things would happen the way they did. We showed up to the school and the director led us to a classroom and told us to wait there. After an hour of waiting, the director came in and told us we were in the wrong room and that we missed the class we were supposed to meet with. So he took us around the school and started asking different teachers if we could go in their class and teach something. The teacher that said ok asked me what we going to teach. I said nothing. We were just there to do introductions and play a game. He opened the door to the class and all the uniform clad kids stood up. The teacher said nothing about us, just grabbed his stuff and took off. It was totally weird. So I just started talking, I introduced myself as did the rest of my group. It was definetly awkward, these kids had no idea who we were or why we were there. Jamar tried to explain what the peace corps was, but I don´t think they got any of it. So I just went right in to starting the first game. The kids weren´t reseptive some of the stuff we planned so I had to a bit of quick thinking and change some stuff around. After being a bit stand offish, they ended up really liking the games. I had to be the on to explain everything, which was really nerve wracking cause I don´t think my spanish is quite there. If the kids wanted to, they could have teared me apart. Luckily, they really liked getting out of their math class to play games with these americans.
After the games were all over, our planned 45 minutes were up, but the teacher was gone. I asked were their teacher was and they all laughed and told us it was okay, that they didn´t need a teacher. There was no way I was leaving, so the other two asked if anyone had any questions (great, meaning I was gonna have to be the one to answer them all). So I stood up there trying to keep the class from getting to roudy, but it was hard. I felt very along up there even though I was in a group. It´s not my groups fault. I know they felf horrible afterwards cause they weren´t able to communicate the things they wanted to. I think they may have been resentful that I was doing all the talking, but it´s not fair cause I didn´t want to be the one who had to do all the talking. Regardless, it was a really good learning experience, and the kids liked us and didn´t want us to leave. We told them we´d be back next week to actually teach something, and I´m even more nervous about that.
Tomorrow we´re going to Lima. I´m really excited about that. Training in general is tough so it will be nice to take a little exursion. Everything else is going well. Nothing to exciting to report with my host family. I went upstairs in the house for the first time last night, and it´s really nice. All the other bed rooms are upstairs, I definetly I have the smallest ickies room, but it´s not bad. I really like talking to my host dad. He is so cheerful and sweet and very smart. Well, will post more after my trip to Lima!

1 comment:

Lili said...

Wow Ali, improvising in a foreign language in front of a class who hasn't the foggiest idea what your credentials are.
The toughest teaching gig I can imagine. YOu did great! Congratulations-- I always knew you have what it takes to teach.