Summary of Teaching In Guate

Wow! Time has flown by!!

I have completed my time of teaching the police officers in the capital of Guatemala.  I have enjoyed this so much!  Below, you will see pictures of the various activities I conducted with my students.  After every class, I walk away knowing I was born to teach.

Teaching here has very unique challenges.  Every day, I had different students.  The schedules of the officers are not only tiered throughout the week, but also throughout the day.  Some officers work nights and others work days.  Some switch back and forth between days and nights.  Some work for 11 days straight and others work for 5 or 7 days.

To add to the scheduling difficulties, part of their job duties often include going out on patrol to places far from the station.  So, sometimes they had planned on coming to class one day, but had patrol duty that went longer than expected.

Many of them also play on a soccer team.  When there were games, classes were cancelled.  I made the most of my time with them, but it turned out to be very little.  I hope that I will have a little more consistency in the next cities.

When I couldn't teach English, I practiced my Spanish.  Sometimes, I have trouble thinking in English now.  I translate from Spanish to English instead of from English to Spanish!  I can't yet decide if this is a good or bad thing.

The following pictures are from my first class (with 15 people). 

 
It was very difficult to teach 15 people.  There was so much time between each student's speaking opportunities!

My succeeding classes had less people: Usually 4-7.

I used sticky-notes to help me remember the names of my students as they worked on answering the questions, "Who are you?" and "Who is he/she?"

My students learned how to ask and answer questions using "this, that, these, and those."  With this, they acquired classroom vocabulary such as: pen, pencil, book, chair, light, window, mirror, notebook, paper, as well as the plurals for these words.  I worked hard to help my students with their pronunciation: the difference between this/these is very difficult for Spanish speakers to create.

Sometimes, due to the officers' schedules, I brought my teaching materials to the front desk at night.  Those who were on duty were often bored, so I "taught on the fly."  The officers had so many questions and wanted to learn it all at once.  In these spontaneous lessons, I managed to keep them focused on one topic such as learning numbers or learning a particular set of phrases.

In my structured classes, I also focused on learning the numbers in English.  Most of the officers could count up to 10 in English, but got stuck after that.  I helped them with their discrimination between and pronunciation of the "teens" and "tens" (fifteeN vs. fiftY).  To do this, I wrote the word form of the number next to the standard form.  Under the word form, I used Spanish phonetic spelling to assist in the pronunciation. I am so glad that I know enough of the language to be able to do this!  It was a HUGE help to my students.

I taught the Alphabet Song with a print-out of the letters of the alphabet for each student.  I even had them sing it without me. (They were so off key, it was painful, even for a tone-deaf person like me!)

After they learned the letter names, they played a game to practice.  It is like Go-Fish.  The cards have the letters of the alphabet on them.  The object of the game is to get the most pairs.  The students learned the following language, "Do you have the letter __? No, I don't have the letter ___. Draw a card. Yes, I have the letter ___. Give it to me. Your turn. My turn."  They also learned turn-taking and pragmatics through this game.  It is one that I will definitely use again! (The cards are actually supposed to be used for phonics.  They are from Sue Dickson's Sing, Spell, Read, and Write curriculum.)

A class or two after learning the letters of the alphabet, I taught various jobs.  We worked on the structure of "Who is a ___?" and "You are a ___." "He/She is a ___." "I am a ____."  "Construction worker" was a very difficult word for them to pronounce!  With many of my students, I would pull out a compact mirror and have them mimic my lip position.  Their friends thought this was hilarious until they themselves had a difficulty!

We worked on greeting each other with "How are you?"  I taught them words besides, "Great, good, and fine."  But I also taught them that words beyond those are the beginning a conversation between close friends.  We worked on various ways of taking leave, as well.

In the middle of the classes, I went to Xela (pronounced Shey-la) for an extended weekend (5 days) with one of the officers whose 11-day-shift was over.  When I returned, I gave a review of this, that, these, and those to my students.  This time, however, I let them draw pictures of vocabulary they wanted to learn.

This was very beneficial to them.  Unfortunately, this was my last class with them.  Today, they had a soccer game, so class was cancelled.  Tomorrow, I am going to the beach for a day of fun. Saturday, I am connecting with some other missionaries. Sunday, I go to Antigua and will start all over there.

I had hoped to bring this group of students to the point that I could teach the simple present tense.  Due to scheduling, however, I barely was able to teach the present form of the verb, "To be."  My goal is to work out more of these kinks before the ball gets rolling in Antigua.  We shall see, however.

Whenever I see my students in passing, they use what they know to communicate with me.  It makes my teacher-heart proud.

Second Class

5/31/12

I taught my second class today.  Many of the police officers went home today, so only a few students were repeats of the first day.  I had only 7 students today.  It was the perfect number.

I was much more prepared for class today.  Last class, I spent a lot of time writing on my whiteboards (sheet protectors) and lost valuable teaching time.  Today, I had key phrases and questions strategically written beforehand.  When I changed topics, I only needed to show a new white board.  When students struggled with already covered concepts, I had the old boards still available.

I also gave the students more time to practice what they learned.  They liked having so many opportunities.  I first modeled the target language and showed the grammar on whiteboards.  Then, I let them practice while I held the whiteboards for those who needed it.  Then, I took the “cheat sheets” away completely.

Today’s lesson was a repeat of the first: “To be” in the simple present tense.  We covered how to introduce yourself, and how to introduce others.  We also covered how to ask who someone is.

After an hour or so, we moved onto a truncated lesson of “This and That”.  I wanted to introduce more vocabulary, but we ran out of time.  The students caught on quickly to the difference between “this” and “that”.  We even moved into asking questions, “Is this____? Is that _____? Are you ______? Is he___? Is she_____?” and how to answer these questions.

I am very glad to speak at least basic Spanish.  When the students were helping each other, I was able to either confirm or deny their explanations.  This motivates me to further my Spanish studies.

Tomorrow, we will have a two hour class.  I will teach more vocabulary as well as expand into “these” and “those”.

First Class

5/29/2012

I taught my first class today.  The students are so eager to learn!  There were 15 (!) students in attendance.  I have asked for smaller classes tomorrow.  It is difficult to hear when there are so many. Some people have an easier time with pronunciation than others.  I found myself leaving out many students in order to work with those who were struggling. Class was held for 2 hours.

Most of the students in attendance have never spoken English.  Some have never heard English before.  Even the students that have studied English have accents so thick, I struggle to understand them.

Today, we covered how to introduce yourself and another person.  I spoke almost completely in English.  There were some times that Spanish could not be avoided, though. 

I used sheet protectors with cardstock inside as my whiteboards.  I had mirrors to help with pronunciation.  The students learned the differences between this is, that is, these are, those are, and how to ask what objects are in English.  Students also learned the basics in possessive pronouns.  We finished the class by every student saying one phrase that they learned. This gave me the opportunity for further error correction.

Tomorrow, Officer Carado (the head of the entire INGUAT police) will break the class into smaller groups.  He understands that I would prefer only 6 or 7 in a class.  I will teach in the morning and in the afternoons.  The officers here work for 7 days, then have 4 days off.  This presents a little bit of a scheduling problem that is still being worked out.

I will have the evenings free to prepare materials and explore the city.  I have been informed that this Friday is a day of vacation for me, as is the weekend.  If I need anything, I just need to ask.  I feel as if I’ve been offered the moon! Everyone here is so kind!

May 17th

Today's preparation project consisted of creating a phonetic chart of all the sounds in the English language.  I used Educational Insight's LipSync (Copyright 2003) for the majority of the cards.  I supplemented the rest of the phonemes by creating cards (in Microsoft Word) based on the words and sounds found in Sing, Spell, Read, and Write (Sue Dickson, Copyright Pearson, Inc.).

My hope is to teach students most of the phonetic spellings that result in certain sounds.  The way the sounds are arranged has a pattern to it.

If you start with the "E for Eagle" card in the top left and move to the right, ending with "oo for balloon", your jaw does not move to make the sounds.  You only lose your smile; you don't pull your lips back.

Starting with the same sound, moving down, your jaw drops.  This pattern continues only for the top quadrant.

Along the top left quadrant, all the sounds are diphthongs, which require a blend of two vowel sounds to be produced correctly.

The bottom section contains the consonant sounds.  Related sounds are placed next to each other.  For example, /p/ is formed in the same way as /b/.  The only difference is that one requires the use of vocal chords (/b/) and the other does not (voiced and non-voiced, respectively).

The layout of this chart allows me to easily teach the discrimination of sounds, as well as phonics.  For many years, I have struggled to combine these two skills for English language learners.  This solution is far from perfect (or inclusive), but it is better than anything I have used in the past.  I will use a different chart to teach alphabetical order.