Weekend en el Campo

I've been super overwhelmed with school (and probably a bit of culture shock and home sickness, too). We are on a three day weekend right now, and I'm actually out in the country with my previous host family. I stayed with them when I was studying abroad in 2007. They live in Santiago, but they also bought a cherry farm about 5 hours to the south. It's a cold and rainy weekend, but it's nice to get away from the hustle and bustle of the city. I think I am learning that I am not a city person! maybe a smaller city? There are over 7 million people in Santiago-- that's more than a third of the population of the entire country!

I think if I decide to stay in Chile, I will move to a smaller city. I like this country, I just think that the city life isnt for me.  I think being in the city affects how the students act, too. They are not very respectful of teachers, especially young, foreign ones (ie, me). It has gotten worse as the year goes by, even though I have gotten more strict with the rules.

www.telegraph.co.uk

Even though most of my students are only a couple years younger than me, the level of maturity expected is much lower than in the United States. They're rowdy in class, and never listen to instructions. They told me it was because they don't understand when I speak English (even though some of them are on their sixth semester of classes), so I even started to explain things in Spanish. Unfortunately, not only do they not pay attention to my directions, they now know that I speak Spanish, some refuse to speak to me in English.  It can be very annoying sometimes!

So, I've been a bit frustrated with the classes, especially with having so many levels. We have our second tests next week-- the written tests are standard, but I have to come up with my own orals. I've finished writing them all except for one class, so I can relax a little thus weekend.  I did really horribly with my documentation last time, so I'm looking for better ways to administer the tests this time.  I think I am going to come up with a printed paper that I can give to each student and just circle the points, or something like that.

Aside from working, I haven't really had time for much else. This weekend is the first I haven't worked since I first arrived. It's nice to get away, though. The weather is kind of bad, so we are stuck inside at the moment, but it feels good to know that I don't have any work to do (well, I do, but I'm caught up enough to take a beak). The family I'm with owns a huge parcel of land where they mostly grow cherries, but they also have avocados, oats, honey, chickens, and a horse. Too bad it's such a far drive from the city--this is where I want to live! They're actually trying to sell it because it had just gotten to be too much to take care of, with two active teenagers and both parents with full-time jobs. I would totally buy it from them! Even with the rain, this place is gorgeous!

Well, we are off to start the asado ( Chilean BBQ).  Yum-o!

Hello...

Long time, no write.  What a surprise, right?  So I thought that I might have some extra time this week, but then I had to go and lose my flash drive which I had conveniently forgotten to back up for the past two weeks, so now I have plenty to do!  Also, I am not feeling very well today.  Both of those things are great for those of you reading this blog--they both mean I need to stay home and stay near the computer (although I should probably be re-doing all the work I lost instead of writing in my blog.  I already did that for a few hours, time for something a bit different)!

If you can't tell, I'm a little stressed right now.  But next weekend I get to go to the country with Mauricio and his family! Hopefully I am feeling better by then... I think the sickness is a combination of a bunch of things--stress, less-than-healthy food, extreme pollution, cold weather, and not enough exercise.  Although I did join a gym!  And I go about every other day, but I must say that I could probably stand to go more often.  I was quite proud of myself for running 3k on my first try.  I know that's not any great feat, but I'm proud of myself!  Haha, I'll let you know how I progress... I'm also hoping to find some time to get into some aerobics classes or something, although as of right now, most of them are during my own class time.  They do have spinning, though!  I am a bit nervous about that; it seems a bit intense!  A lot of the people at this gym are pretty intense themselves--there are some guys there that could probably knock me over with their pinky!  I feel like such a lightweight there!  But I suppose it's good motivation.  I am not even going to go into the details of my endeavours into weight training.  If you think my running is embarrassing... yea, we're not going to go there.  But I guess that's why I joined the gym, right?

So, let's see.  What else have I been up to?  Other than a lot of working (and now doing it all again since the loss of my pen drive), I've been thinking a lot about my next step.  I know it might be a bit preemptive, but I can't help it!  I guess I'm kind of always planning out the next step.  Like the fact that there are 70 days left until the end of the semester.  Or that there are 37 days until Scott comes.  And only 9 days until the next testing cycle!  I'm nervous about the next test; I hope the students do better than last time.  Last time, I had only about three weeks to teach all the material.  This time, I will have had about five, so I think they will do much better.  But that also concerns me a bit--to motivate them, I promised that I would buy a jar a peanut butter for anyone who gets more than a 6,5 (out of 7,0).  Not many people did that on the last test, so I didn't think I would have to buy much peanut butter.  However, it seems like the students are grasping the concepts much better this time--I could be in some trouble now!!  Anyone want to donate some peanut butter? :-)

As Usual...

... I tend to get over-optimistic about how often I will be able to write in my blog and then never quite end up having enough time.  But I woke up early today because I thought that I hadn't planned my classes (which is usually the case), but I had, in fact, planned all three of them for today already!  Look at me, all ahead of things!  For the moment...  Of course, I have no idea what I will be doing in those classes after today, but... hey, at least I have a few minutes now to update you a bit!

Now if only I could remember what it is I have been doing.  Working, mostly.  Planning, planning, planning, planning!  Wooooo!  It's a little nicer this round, because we have five weeks to teach for the next test (last time we only had four, and the first week was pretty much wasted with introductions and logistics and stuff like that).  Today is the last day of the second week, and I am pretty much right on schedule.  Except for my one late class that goes until 10:00 pm--I have a different set of students each time I hold that class, so they are invariably completely lost because they didn't come to the last class.  I know I'm not supposed to be re-teaching the same lessons again, but how can I continue when they don't understand the basis of what we're doing?  I know that those kids probably aren't going to do as well on the test, simply because they don't show up to class so they don't  have as much time to learn.  For  most of them, it's not their fault--they all have other jobs, so oftentimes they get stuck working late and can't make it to class.  They're still probably going to get poor grades for low attendance, but I prefer to teach them a few things well instead of trying to keep up with the rest of the classes and just throw things at them.  So, even if they don't learn very well what will be on the second half of the test, at least they will be able to use the stuff from the first half.  If I didn't slow down a bit, they wouldn't be able to use any of it!  Of course, I have to make sure that at I least introduce all the topics, because there are a couple students who actually study on their own and could figure it out themselves.  That's a tough class.  Well, the class itself is pretty nice because it's so small.  The most I've ever had show up at once is 6 students, so we usually all sit in a circle and do stuff together.  It's easier to focus on what they need the most help with.  And they have fun!  It's usually a nice way to end my long days, even if the logistics of it are a bit frustrating.

So, other than school, what have I been up to?  Well, last weekend was the reunion for all the present and past TeachingChile participants--it was held on the roof of the director's apartment (20th floor!), and the view was great!  He lives in a really nice part of town, close to the mountains, and there was actually very little smog that day so it was perfect.  We had all sorts of American food, including ginormous, Texas-sized burgers!  There was also about 5 gallons of guacamole.  And no, I am not exaggerating.  It was nice to see everyone again; we've all been so busy that it's been hard to meet up, especially the people who have been sent to other cities!  It was also nice to compare stories and see that I'm not the only one struggling to keep my head above water!  Although I am pretty jealous of one kid who got ALL advanced classes.  He never has trouble explaining things, and he says he spends about 15 minutes planning each class. And apparently his students are actually well-behaved too!  I guess if you manage to get to those levels, you must want to be there.  For most people, it is only required to get to the intermediate level to graduate.  There was also a ton of free wine and beer at the event, which is always sure to attract a crowd.  We even got to try some micro-brewed beer from a company that is managed by one of the former TeachingChile participants.  It was super delicious, and they're going to start exporting soon!  See if you can find it in the U.S.!  Check it out: Szot Beer.

Also, all you Hoeferts out there are going to be jealous, but there is a whole train museum at Parque Quinta Normal!  I was supposed to go to the zoo in Lampa with Raul last Sunday, but he didn't feel well so he decided to stay home.  Which worked out great for me, because I got to go out exploring!  I love Parque Quinta Normal--it is a huge park with lots of outdoor activities available, but it is also home to some of the city's best museums.  I think there are five or six museums inside the park, and two or three just outside of it.  So, even though it is about 45 minutes away by train, it is definitely a great place to go whenever (if ever) I get bored (or more likely, start to pull my hair out from frustration). Anyways, I went to the Museo Ferroviario (Train Museum), which has a bunch of Chile's oldest trains.  They even have the presidential car from the early 20th century!  It has all original furnishings (except the clock, which somehow magically disappeared in the train's transfer to the museum).  They give free guided tours, and I took about 20 pictures just inside the train!  Except for furnishings, it is built completely of wood, and it features all the modern amenities that are even hard to come by in trains nowadays: running cold and hot water, flush toilets, showers, central heating and GE fans, and even electricity!  It was pretty amazing!  If you didn't want to visit me before, what better reason could you have than the opportunity to visit the Train Museum!?  Check out their website for further anticipation: Museo Ferroviario.

And I will leave you with that, because now it's time for class.  Enjoy!

What to do...?

... in class tomorrow?  That's what I should really be working on, but instead I am just sitting here and staring at the computer.  We have pretty much finished up all the units for the test, we just have to work on the writing practice.  I've been giving the writing as homework, but since I am going to have more time in my next few classes, it might be nice to start the assignment in class.  Or it might lead to more goofing off.   I also could start the review, but I'm not sure exactly how to do that.  I already gave them a  vocab sheet with new words and grammatical structures, so they know what is going to be on the test (as much as I do, which isn't very much because the department heads haven't finished writing it yet).  They also need more practice speaking, but whenever we do that in pairs or threesomes, they just end up speaking Spanish except when I walk by.  What to do, what to do...

Who wants to send me some advice?

Or do it for me? :-P

Haha, ok, ok, ok.... I'm working!

At least I get Korean food tonight...!  I'll let you know how that goes!

Party Time!

Ok, so this teaching thing takes so much more time than I anticipated!  I only have 18 hours of actual classes, but I spend probably about 50 more hours a week planning all the classes!  I have three different levels in six different classes, so that is a lot of prepping!  And this first part is the most difficult, because I haven't taught before and was just sort of thrown into it.  Plus, we have a standard test after every two units.  We usually have 5 weeks to teach both units, but this first part of the semester, we only have four.  Combine that with not doing much teaching the first couple days and with students still registering for classes, and it makes for a bunch of very stressed-out teachers (and I'm sure many of the students, as well)!  I still feel like I'm barely managing to keep my head above the water!  I don't know when I will have time to do relaxing things, or to travel!  But I guess this is definitely a quick way to get an education in... education.

I am very tired right now, and I can't really remember what I've been doing since my last entry!  I know that I have been doing a lot of prepping for classes and running around like mad and having no idea what is going on.  At least I haven't been bored!  There is some drama going on at my house right now, but I'm not going to go into it.  Hopefully it will be resolved before I know it and then there will have been no point in talking about it!  Sometimes I start to believe that telenovelas aren't as far-fetched as they might seem...

I did get to go to an Argentinian asado (BBQ) a couple weeks ago!! There was chimichurri and everything--yum!! It was a birthday party for my Chilean friend's boss, but my other friend who is from Argentina did all the cooking.  It was quite and interesting cultural experience.  I forgot how old the birthday 'boy' was, but it was somewhere in the mid- to late- forties.  It was mostly his family and his employees, along with a few other random people thrown in here and there (like me).  We got there around 6:00 to start cooking, but most of the people didn't start to arrive until after 10:00.  The drinking, of course, had started immediately (or even before), so there was quite a high level of inebriation at this event.  Of course, you can't have proper drinking without adequate smoking, either.

That is the one thing that I don't think I will get used to here in Santiago--everyone, and I mean EVERYONE, smokes.  And there are no laws or regulations, so you can smoke wherever you want, which gets a bit annoying when you go to a nice restaurant to enjoy a fancy meal only to have cigarette smoke blown in your face.  But at least I have gotten my roommates to close the door when they smoke on the patio (usually.  We'll see how long it lasts, too).

Anyways, back to the party.  I was surprised how late it was, and also by how rowdy it got!  Especially because this man wasn't particularly young, either!  Most of the people were probably between 35-50 years old, although there were a couple pre-teens who accompanied their parents, and also the parents of the birthday boy who were around 70 years old.  This did not prevent party-goers from eating, drinking, and smoking like there was no tomorrow (and I suppose that is more true for them than teenagers, but... still!). I spent most of the time next to the bbq for three reasons--one, a bunch of super delicious food right at my disposal; two, it was actually pretty cold out; and three, the smoke from the fire negated the smoke from the cigarettes.

I was invited inside to sit with the birthday boy and his family at one point, so I couldn't really refuse that.  Being one of only two foreigners at the party (the other was my Argentine friend), I was a bit of a mini-celebrity.  Especially once the drinking got started a bit more, I got many requests for English lessons.  I was quite impressed with how much peoples' (especially the men's) English improved after just a few drinks!  But at least nobody tried to do anything, I think they were more intrigued by my "exotic-ness" thank anything else.  Plus, I had my two big, scary bodyguards to keep me safe (my 'neighbor' in my house and his friend are both older than me and sort of treat me like their younger sister who needs protection from everything.  That's ok with me)!

The party really started to get interesting around 1:00 am, when they began the lap-dance contest for the birthday boy.  A bunch of the (now extremely drunk) female party-goers competed with each other for nearly half an hour to see which could give the best dance.  There were even long, thin balloons for props!  The winner got a giant bottle of expensive wine.  They even had a second contest for the father of the birthday boy!  He really enjoyed that!  I must say, this is probably one of the more unique birthday parties I have been to.  Unfortunately, being the gringa that I am and not being accustomed to staying out so late (or drinking so much, though that isn't usually a problem for most gringos), I had to ask to be taken home at 3:00 am.  My friend was pretty disappointed and even tried to get me to go out somewhere else, but I was almost to the point of having to hold my eyes open with my hands to stay awake!  I don't know what the secret is!

At least I had a good cultural experience, and some super delicious food.  If you have never eaten Argentine meat, you have not lived.  In which case you should come visit me and we can go to Argentina.  See you soon!

First Week of School!

I made it through my first couple days of school--GO ME! And I have to give a special acknowledgement to Scott for helping me plan my first lessons--they went amazingly, by the way (and of course all of my students already know what "amazing" means--it is pretty much the most important word in the English language)!  The students (I really want to write "kids," but most of them are only a couple years younger than me.  Some of them are even older than me) are all really great, although some of them are really frightened!  I've tried to catch some of the most timid ones and talk to them one on one in Spanish so that they aren't so nervous (and see that I am learning a language, too).  The abilities in my classes vary a ton!

This semester, I am teaching three different levels--Basic I, Intermediate I, and Intermediate II.  Some of the students in Basic I understand everything I am saying, where some in Intermediate II can barely tell me their names!  I am not really sure how to deal with such varied levels, because I can see that some of the advanced students are already bored by the second day with the activities!  I guess I will teach towards the middle of the range and offer extra hours for the students who need more help.  Unfortunately, I don't have any personal space at the campus, so I don't know where we would meet.  There is a cafeteria, though, so that could work!  I'll work on that part, later.  I have so many different things to keep track of! Some people only have one level to teach--I'm kind of jealous of that!  Oh, well, this will give me good practice!

My schedule is kind of weird--I've had two classes with some groups, and some I haven't even met yet (I will today, though).  Mondays and Wednesdays are my super long days--my first class starts at 8:30 am and my last ends at 10:00 pm!  I have breaks in between, but that almost makes it more tiring, because I can't really fully relax during the interim periods, but I'm not really working full speed either...  I think it will be nice though because I can use most of that time to plan the next lessons, instead of having to do it all during the weekends.  In fact, I should probably be working on that right now, but I'm going to procrastinate instead.  I just missed you guys so much that I figured I should probably update the blog first.  I am going to be very proud of myself if I manage to update it once a week.  Help me realize my goals (by nagging me if I don't)!  We aren't supposed to give out a lot of homework, so at least I won't have very much to grade!  We also don't have to write our own tests, which is nice (less pressure), but also a bit worrisome because all the English classes use the same test (making it easier to cheat).

Apparently cheating is a big problem here, and I'm not quite sure how to deal with it.  I already talked to one student who wasn't doing the work I told them to do.  When I asked him why he wasn't working, he said he was waiting for his friend to finish so that he could copy him!  I had told them to work in pairs, but that wasn't exactly the idea I had in mind!  I asked him what he was going to do on the test if he didn't learn how to do it himself now, and he said he would still copy from his friend.  Then I asked what would happen when he got a great job and had to speak English as part of it; he paused for a moment, but then replied that he would just bring his friend to the job with him!  Tricky kid!  But he did start doing his own work after that.

I have mostly day classes, so that means that most of my students are traditional--they are studying towards a "carrera" (career), and are taking English as part of the requirement to graduate.  They are college-aged (18-22), so they have a lot of energy and like to move around and do active games.  They like to make fun of me a lot too (I am now Professor Britney Spears)!  Even the ones that say they are shy come up and talk to me.   In my very first class of the semester, I wrote a  lot of things wrong on the board (they don't get a sylabbus, so I have to copy everything onto the board for them to copy onto their papers), and I said "oops!" a lot.  The students thought that was hilarious, so now whenever they see me, they say "Hello!  Oops!" Well, at least they are learning interjections.  That could come in useful at some point.  I find that "oops" is one of my most frequently used words...

Two of my classes are evening classes, so these are the older students who are coming from jobs and are learning English as part of their continuing education.  I think they have a hard time with me because I look (I am) so young.  They gave me a look of great pity when they realized that that I was here alone.  They were very concerned that my parents were not coming.  Here in Chile, it is very common for kids to live with their parents until they are married or until they get their first job, so most people are in their late 20's before they move out.  The night students are a lot more serious than the day students, so I don't know if a lot of my activities will work for them.  They are more afraid of making mistakes, and they also probably think that a lot of the games are juvenile.  I'm not quite sure how to deal with that just yet... I guess we can do more writing activities or working in small groups, instead of moving around and large group activities.  I would welcome suggestions *hint* *hint*!

Speaking of planning, I'd better get on that!  I have a class in one hour!

About DuocUC

Well, I still haven't finished my second entry, but I guess I should move on since I've missed about a week's worth of stuff already!  Maintaining a blog is much more time consuming that I anticipated!  And there is just always so much going on here that it is always on the bottom of my list of priorities (Sorry, guys.  Guess you'll just have to come visit if you want more details!).  So now I am going to try to summarize what has been going on so that we can catch up a bit.  If I can remember--each day here seems like about three or four days run together!  Today should be a bit slower, though.  All I have to do is go to my campus at 5:00 to meet the site coordinator.

Let's see... what have I been up to since I got my room (yes, I got it!  I know I haven't gotten to that part in the story yet, but I don't want to leave you hanging!)?  This week we have been in orientation/ training at the main DuocUC campus in downtown Santiago.  They sure are packing a lot of stuff into six hours per day--imagine trying to summarize everything that goes into getting a teaching degree into a total of 18 hours of class time.  It is pretty intense.  We had almost two hours just of playing games and doing activities to give us an idea of what we should do with our students.  The teacher that taught that class was so energetic!! It was truly amazing!  We played a bunch of language games that she uses in her classes (although usually you only do one per day, not 10 or 11 like we did!).   She made us do them in Spanish (instead of English, like we will be doing in our classes), so that we could understand what our students go through.  Obviously, I didn't get the full experience because I already am fairly decent at Spanish, but it was really interesting to see how the non-Spanish-speakers reacted when she announced we were going to do it in Spanish.  For some, it was a look of sheer panic.  She told us that most of our students feel the same way, as most of them have never really been exposed to English before.

Before I get too much into the details, I should probably tell you more about Duoc.  Duoc is part of the Universidad Catolica University system, but it is more focused on careers (probably about what we would call a technical school).  Here, a university degree takes 5 years, but a technical degree can take 2-4 years.  There are 14 campuses for Duoc, most in Santiago, but there are also some in Valparaiso, Vina del Mar, and Concepcion.  The whole system has over 70,000 students and 3,000 full-time faculty.  Duoc is the only higher education program in the country that requires that 100% of its students learn English and receive a passing grade on the TOEIC (Test of English for International Communication) in order to graduate.  This year, they have hired about 100 native speakers to aid in reaching their goal of ensuring that each of their graduates have functional English fluency, in addition to the 350 teachers already on staff.

Unlike many higher education institutes in Chile, there is no minimum requirements for entering DuocUC (other than having graduated high school), so the abilities of the students vary greatly.   About 72% of the students come from the three lowest socioeconomic classes in the country, and for over 75%, they will be the first in their family to receive a higher education degree.  Many of the students will have come from public schools in Chile (very different from the U.S.; these schools usually have extremely low academic standards. While it is a national requirement that English be taught in school, public schools simply cannot afford to have one on staff.  Oftentimes, whichever staff member happens to know a few sentences ends up trying to fit in a bit of English here and there during Math class or whatever other subject they happen to teach).  Anyways, so most of the students have basically no English skills whatsoever.

In fact, contrary to what most of us thought coming in, the majority of our classes will be very basic.  We are actually encouraged to use Spanish in the early level classes, just to get the point across!  I am super nervous about starting classes on Monday, but I am so glad that my Spanish is good.  I cannot imagine trying to go into this without any Spanish at all.  Although I guess it would make it easier for me to relate to the students! I am actually thinking about taking another language class while I'm here, too.  Apparently Portuguese is the way to go; that could be interesting!

I have to go make sure I have everything ready for my meeting this afternoon, but hopefully I will have time to write some more later!