AND I THOUGHT I WAS TAKING A BREAK FROM TEACHING…

As I was riding the metro to the Cuzco station on my way to work Tuesday morning, I had a moment where I actually felt like a “real” Spaniard. Here I was in my dressier attire, standing amongst the many others in their daily routine of heading to work each day. I knew where I was going and what stops to transfer at. I did not have to look at a map or ask anyone for help. Finally, with no need to open my mouth to speak, there was no direct giveaway that I was an American.

Now that we are actually working in addition to living here, it seems that our goal of cultural emersion is being fulfilled. We truly are living the “Spanish life…” in fact, we just finished making and eating dinner and it’s 9:50pm! (Of course, most of the restaurants here just opened for dinner 20 minutes ago…) Our neighborhood is also becoming very familiar to us. Tonight as we took our walk to the grocery store, 3 different people greeted us on the way there. Two of them were previous waiters from tapas bars we’ve frequented, and the other was a teacher from our language school. That’s more familiar people than we’d ever run into when out on a walk in South Pasadena!

So, back to the metro. Although I might have looked like a true local, I felt like I was walking into a very unfamiliar and foreign place. What would my job duties be? Would I enjoy it? A part of me was a little hesitant to be starting up a work schedule after these 2 weeks of being a student and tourist, but I do really support my organization’s mission and was excited to be joining their team to help Ecuadorian immigrants. Upon my arrival, my supervisor warmly welcomed me and began explaining what my daily schedule would look like. Although I struggled to comprehend most of what she was saying, I did catch her say, “Tomorrow I’ve set up a class for you to teach adults English at 10:00am… there are around 5-10 students signed up.” Now, I knew there was a possibility that I might be teaching a higher-level conversational English class (meaning, they’d know the basics so they would be able to understand me as I taught only in English), but I didn’t expect to be starting the next morning! I’ve never taught English before, nor did I have any idea how to structure a conversational class. To add to this little wave of stress I was feeling, the class would be 3 days a week, for 1-½ hours. I had assumed I’d be able to observe another class before I gave it a go myself, but I was wrong. Oh well, it was time to embrace the challenge.

I spent the next hour doing a little prep work and throwing together my first lesson. Luckily, she did have a little bit of curriculum for me to look at and the Internet is a lifesaver when it comes to teaching ideas. I am also so grateful I just attended Spanish class of my own. The teachers there have provided a great model of what it’s like to teach in the unknown language to the student. The rest of my first day of work was spent on other various projects, such as helping update the computer database and typing out several resumes of the recent immigrants. Overall, it was a satisfying first day of work and I left feeling confident and excited about my new responsibilities.

So, this morning 5 students showed up for my class and it went great! It turns out that a high level of conversational English, to them really meant, “I know how to say hello and that’s all.” Only one student understood more than that. What a thrilling challenge! I managed to fill 1 ½ hours speaking in English and a little half-Spanish, teaching introductions, greetings and some basic vocabulary. We role-played scenarios, I did a lot of charades and drawing pictures, and I used pictures to illustrate vocabulary that I had cut out from magazines the night before. My “students” are from Ecuador, Bolivia and Peru. Two of them are college students who want to learn English to prepare them for an international working world, and the others are middle-aged adults wanting to speak English to help them find work now. Although they were of course not able to tell me these details in English, it was very fulfilling to see their pride as they were able to speak about 3 new English sentences before leaving class today. I look forward to my second class on Friday and can’t wait to get to know these friendly and eager students better throughout the next 2 months. -Trisha