Norah Jones

All pictures on this post were taken by 7 year old iPhone hijacker Anita

So I've started teaching at the Municipalidad El Tropico which is about 10 minutes bus ride from Huanchaco. I give free extra English classes to adults, or so I thought I was going to. Turns out anyone might just show up and that includes 11 year olds and 14 year olds. As any teacher will tell you, especially those from the foreign language department, unexpected surprises like these are no cause for celebration.

Clever boy Jheison

Today as I started my lesson with 23 year old law student Olje (very keen language learner), Maricarmen walks into the class. Luckily, Melissa was around to observe my class so she offered to take over with Olje.

My 2 amors, 5 year old Maira and 3 year old Pirina

Maricarmen is 11 and speaks no word of English. I think she can't even really write because she asked me if she spelt her own name correctly on the registry. Still I thought we got off to a positive start at first when I introduced myself in English and she was able to copy what I said and introduce herself in return. Then we began our numbers lesson.

Not quite sure who this kid is

I've taught this lesson before, pretty straightforward stuff. Clapping and saying the numbers. Flash cards. Matching the numbers to the words. Play easy numbers game. Maybe close the lesson with flashcards.

The church next door

Well. I see now how deluded and spoilt I've been. Having only taught adults with serious motivation (e.g. Middle Eastern students who need the grade to migrate/get into university/find better jobs) and sullen Korean kids (not their fault, they were forced against their will to take 9-5 English lessons during school holidays), teaching in El Tropico is...different. And that is like saying taking the NYC subway everyday in a unicorn suit is...different.

Two conspirators

15 minutes into the lesson and I realised we were not going to get anywhere past the number 10. Half hour later and I knew that even doing up to 5 today was going to be very challenging. After 45 minutes I started speaking Spanish which is something I never do during an English lesson, and asked her if she preferred to go home early or stay and learn. She choose to stay.

Happiness sometimes come in small packages

I brought out the chocolate. I used up 1 week in class's worth of encouragement. My mouth ached from smiling. And still after 1 hour, she barely got through numbers 1-5 correctly.

That's Kheira from Italy. I'm pretty sure I spelt her name wrong

Sure she was easily distracted and I could tell she lacked concentration. It may even have something to do with the fact that she comes from a lower class background and doesn't know how to learn. These are definitely contributing factors but whatever, it still reflects badly on me as a teacher because I could not even achieve a simple numbers lesson successfully.

This is where we have our classes upstairs

Frustration? For sure. Disappointment? An unbelievable amount of. Today's lesson has taught me the patience lesson, which is something we all can't learn enough of. I'm also reminded again why I shouldn't be a lazy teacher and be more ready to change teaching methods even if it means doing it in the middle of a lesson. In retrospect I should've also been less hard on Maricarmen than I was today.

Classroom with a view

I hope she comes back for class on Wednesday. I'll do better next time.