Teaching Here 'n There

I will try to take a break from the "look at all of the day-trips I am taking" picture portion of the blog that seems to have taken over and focus on the reason why I actually came to Chile, to teach English. I haven't said a lot about this yet and I can't give any specifics about my institute on my blog, but let me take this opportunity to report my experience teaching English here thus far.

As a teacher by trade, my observations could be vastly different from those who have never taught in a classroom in the U.S., but maybe not? I think with teaching your first language comes a certain level confidence that one doesn't ever have with their second language. Of course, there are exceptions for people who grow up other countries, live there for many years, have bilingual parents, etc. My experience in learning Spanish was in school so I became a lot more adept at learning grammatical rules of Spanish and how to use it "correctly" and completed ignored all of the English grammar rules in English class and continued to speak as I always had. This combined with several years of teaching Spanish translates to me being able to explain those rules of the Spanish language pretty well. Sure, my students here might laugh because I can't say my "r's" exactly the way that a native can, but I do have the benefit of understanding the grammatical structures of Spanish and how my students think. I know why they want to say "Have your parents any car?" and that learning "do" is difficult concept because it's so opposite the Spanish structure.

What I don't know all that well quite yet is how to explain English rules for things that I can repeat to myself 2-3 times and still not know which is the correct one since they both sound "right" to me! These are the moments that frustrate me since students seem to get caught up on some of those rules that I'm not accustomed to teaching. Meanwhile I'm waving my arms and saying "look over here at this awesome thematic lesson that I've planned" and never mind the picky grammar rule, let's just continue the conversation we were having about gossip and its negative effects. Over the course of the last few years I had stopped teaching grammar as a separate lesson and begun incorporating it a lot more holistically, hence the difficulty I'm having of doing things the "old way". I'm also working on an online TEFL course that wasn't required of me since I have teaching experience, but I want to complete one just to have the extra practice as well as the certification.

Two months into my experience I'd have to say that for me the positives outweigh the negatives. I love the change of teaching adults as well as teenagers. I love not having to spend hours and hours grading papers and being able to put that time into planning lessons for 8 students instead of 27. I'm also fortunate to be able to dip into my previous lessons that I used back home and try to use them here as an English lesson. I love being able to explain vocabulary as it comes up in class and tell an accompanying story in my first language. (last week it was "leftovers")

The schedule isn't always optimal, but I do often have time during the day to catch up on email, Skype with my family and friends at school, and possibly take a quick nap if I'm exhausted from teaching til 9 and then running home and having to be somewhere else at 8 the next morning. When you look at the breakdown of the hours, it doesn't look like much compared to what I was doing at home, but it does begin to wear you down. It's impossible to get home at 9:40 and get anything done and also be in bed at a decent time to feel rested enough for the next day's early class. That combined with also working early on Saturday mornings makes the week feel a lot longer.

Overall, I've found that it's just like anything else in life, create a balance for yourself and learn what works for you!