A Guatemalan education

So I've not only been a teacher here in Guatemala, I have also been taught many things. First and foremost I've been learning a lot from my students. I especially remember the first couple times I tutored...I had no idea what to do! Do I give them a English quiz to see how much they know or do I just talk with them? Should I create lessons or just trust that they'll have something to do? How much should I allow the parents to get involved? These are all questions that I struggled with when I first began and still struggle with now. Well in answer to the first question, I didn't give them a test to see how much English they knew - I just dived right in. With the older students this wasn't too much of a problem, but with the younger ones who have had less English classes it was nearly impossible.

For one of my students I'm learning that I'm going to need to start creating some ideas of things for us to do. The last few times I've been over he's had no homework, or any desire to actually study English, so we've spent the better part of an hour each time stumbling through conversations half in English and half in Spanish. He is using more English with me than before, but I feel like he's not respecting me as much as he used to...part of that might be tied in to the fact that he's been on the losing end of a few soccer games and I might have rubbed it in his face a bit. Mostly because he tried to tell me I wasn't going to score a single goal...and I scored four or five. I think he also struggles a lot with the concept of "losing gracefully" or losing at all. He doesn't seem the type that's needed to share or lose to a sibling.

As for my other learning experiences here in Guatemala, I have also been learning Spanish. I took a full week of classes at La Union with my wonderful teacher Julia. She and I are now family and she offered to give Salem and I private lessons at a discounted rate! We haven't yet had time to take advantage of that opportunity, but I would like to work with her at least a little bit. My Spanish speaking skills have also improved over the last couple weeks since I started working at the Hostel and Travel agency owned by the parents of one of my students. At the Hostel I have to be able to speak Spanish because most of the staff speaks very little English. All the cleaning ladies, the repairman, and the night watchman speak almost entirely in Spanish. Thus to communicate with them without the help of one of the English speaking staff members, I have to be able to speak in Spanish. I really like talking with the cleaning ladies. They're hilarious and they love to make jokes -- usually at my expense. For example, one of the cleaning ladies named Mary usually chuckles a bit whenever I say something in Spanish -- the best example being when I tried to tell the women I work with that there was a man at the door asking for her, but the work I used to say "for you" might have meant "for her purposes or use"...So they all laughed pretty hard about that.

More to come later...

Peace,
LP