Exchanging Tech, Part 2

One of the few things I actually have been able to do here in Galera since I arrived is to help with English classes.  Unfortunately, the English teacher thinks that because I am a native English speaker, I must know how to teach foreign language acquisition at the high school level… Nope.  Luckily, PC Ecuador has a TEFL program with people equipped to do just that.  So, I asked a TEFL volunteer, Peter, to come help me out for a week.  We tried to coordinate with the English teacher about how she can plan and do some co-teaching with me in the future, but she is still somewhat resistant to put in the extra work to become a more effective teacher.  So Peter took over the class.  He worked on personal presentations (my name is…, I live in…, I am… years old, etc.), then reviewed colors in English using a tic-tac-toe game, and played hangman with the kids to review the alphabet.   Because listening is not emphasized in the classroom, Peter used songs to work on the kids’ listening skills.   For example, he provided the kids with the lyrics with some words omitted from Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star with an accompanying wordbank then had them fill in the blanks to the best of their abilities.  We did a similar activity with Miley Cyrus’ Party in the USA, followed by teaching them a little dance for the chorus that we stole from a TEFL activity done by some other PCVs during training.  After they listened to the song a few times and attempted to fill in the blanks, they all got up and danced it out.  This is where Ecua kids and American kids differ:  Ask a group of 9^th grade Americans- 8 girls and 15 boys- to dance, in front of their peers, to a Miley Cyrus song.. They probably won’t.  Ask a group of 9^th grade Ecuas to do the same thing…  They absolutely will.  A number of the boys really seemed to enjoy “moving their hips like, yeah;” they could show Ms. Mi-Cy a thing or two.

The 9vo class being unusually attentive

"Profe Peter" in action

The tech exchange was a success, or at least the kids had fun and learned some new words.  I saw a few of the octavo girls at the town fiesta the following weekend, and when I quizzed them on their colors in English, they seemed to remember a lot.  Peter was a hit with the kids too, since he was actually able to show them that there are fun ways to learn a language besides repeating phrases from a book that is beyond their skill level.  I joked that the kids would have preferred for him to stay and me to leave.  Sure enough, when I returned to the colegio alone the following week, all the kids were asking where “Profe Peter” was and if he was coming back.  Following the tech exchange, the kids had exams and now vacation, but hopefully when their schedule is back to normal I can start going again regularly to plan activities and who knows, maybe have a follow-up Miley Cyrus dance party.