It’s My Birthday, I Can Teach if I Want To!

May 11, 2015

Probably the most fun day of “teaching” I’ve every had! My students are incredible. Have I said that enough? I don’t think I’ve said that enough. Back when I first started teaching in April we got on the topic of food during International Health Day. We started talking about our favorite foods and typical foods that one might eat in the US vs Panama. Then somehow we came upon the topic of party foods and birthdays and as soon as you know it the students were organizing each other into groups to give me a Panamanian-style potluck in class for my birthday! WORD. With a little bit more planning and structure, we ended up having a few classes beforehand dedicated to learning food and cooking vocabulary so that they could make videos and/or power point presentations of their recipes and process of how they prepared each dish.
My role was to sit back, relax, learn a thing or two about Panamanian cooking, and be ready to eat. My students would remind me each day leading up to it “Bailey, you probably shouldn’t eat breakfast on Monday.” (I did my best to prep my stomach). We started off class with their cooking presentations, and afterwards – I couldn’t help myself – we watched an episode from the new season of MTV’s My Super Sweet 16 with Lil Wayne’s daughter. It was absolutely #priceless and showed another side of the US culture that’s for sure #bougie #spoiled #culturalimmersiononfleek (side note: had to describe “on fleek” … you know, just another day in the life as a college ESL/EFL teacher. My life is awesome).

It truly was a wonderful day with my students. I was proud of them for their presentations and my stomach was sooo pleased with the final results! It was a great way to spend my Birthday and a good send off before my trip back to the States for my brother’s graduation from dental school.

Birthday selfie with my students!

They had forgotten candles, so a few students ran over to El Rey supermarket down the street… but they didn’t have any 2’s or 3’s… so they got 9, 9 and 5… because 9 + 9 + 5 = 23. I burst out laughing and almost cried hahaha I loved their nonsensical logic and made it that much more of a ridiculously wonderful day.

The panamanian spread: corn tamales, chicken and rice, patacon cups with salchicha filling, sweet plantains, corn chicha, and arroz con leche. I might be missing something , but there were just so many things! I felt so special and honored that they wanted to share a part of their culture with me for my birthday!

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The views and information presented in this blog are my own and do not represent the Fulbright Program or the US Department of State.

 

Finally! My First Day of Teaching

April 16, 2015

First day of Teaching!

… aaaand I still had no idea what I was doing.

That’s the beauty of a Fulbright ETA – like it or not, it’s classified as a Fulbright Student Grant. Why? Because we still have a hell of a lot to learn. For starters, my “name game bingo” that I thought would be easy and fun as an ice breaker for the first day was way too difficult. And these students are English majors or Tourism majors (in which a certain level of English is mandatory for them to graduate) – and I realized that many of them are still at a very beginner level. That exercise, and first class for that matter, really put into perspective what level of English I would need to start catering my lessons towards.

I realized many of my students get held back by none other than their own “pena,” their own stress/embarrassment/shyness, much like I am with my Spanish. I took Spanish for 3 years in Middle School, four years in High School, and four years in College, PLUS six months of that time was spent studying abroad in Buenos Aires immersed in the language and culture at some of the top universities. But do I consider myself fluent? Absolutely not. And that’s my fault, truthfully. I haven’t pushed myself enough, haven’t had enough self-discipline to practice on my own at home, have been too shy to practice with my close friend from Colombia or boyfriend from Venezuela. It’s just so easy to fall back into the familiar. Especially for someone like me who gets a bit neurotic from time to time about doing the best I can. With Spanish I get nervous. I can read, write and understand well, but it’s just when it comes to speaking that I get shy and don’t really want to talk unless I know it’s going to be correct and perfect.

*BING* and just like that the light bulb went off in my head and I realized: this is exactly what some of my students are feeling! This realization has inspired me to chill out about my Spanish language and just go for it, make mistakes #yolo. Might as well practice what you preach, right? I tell my students to make mistakes, talk to me in espanglish or explain it the best they can in spanish and then we’ll find a way to express what they want to say in English. I remind myself what I remind them: it doesn’t matter if it’s perfect right away, it just matters that you can communicate. We always have to start somewhere and we often learn best through our mistakes.

April classes were a month of trial and error. Lots of students testing the water of this mysterious “club” thing… let’s just say Panamanians don’t really have clubs in their universities #culturaldifferences For me I used our conversation club as a way to test out different teaching styles; what works, what doesn’t, what the students like and what kind of leaves them feeling bored. One thing’s for sure – I’m definitely learning a lot about myself along the way!

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The views and information presented in this blog are my own and do not represent the Fulbright Program or the US Department of State.