Teaching the Teacher

Teaching has been a fun and frustrating experience. I was feeling over whelmed my first week of  English classes. Where do I being? How do I organize and plan lessons? Where are we going to end up at the end of the year? I was afraid of being a miserable failure of a teacher and disappointing the expectations of my community.

But...

The past two weeks have taught me a lot.

First- to go slow, go really slow. For these students, it is their first experience with English and exposure to something outside their culture, their norms and their routine. What I my think is easy or will take 5 minutes to explain and comprehend may take them an entire class to understand. So, there is no rush to figure out what direction to go or where to end the school year because we are still working on, “hello” and “my name is.”

Second- I’m not alone. Being foreign, speaking Spanish as my second language and living away from family, friends and other volunteers I feel disconnected and isolated. I learned this week that its good to email other volunteers, they can give some good advice. Also, I may live in the middle of no where, but my community and family here does care and does want to help. At first I felt like I had to take on the responsibility of English Classes and Community Projects without help/advice/support/ideas from people in town, but they showed me over the past two days that they want to make me feel welcomed and  supported.

Third- I have to take it day by day. Bad days don’t last forever and when a good day pops up it makes you feel so HAPPY.