Welp I am officially a teacher! I don't know how accurate that is but I have officially completed my first day of teaching Basic English 1 to Spanish speaking students. In my opinion, it went a lot better than I thought. Yesterday at this time, I was a stress ball. I had NO idea how I was going to plan my first class. Luckily, I have 6 other co-workers who are all still living in the hostel with me to help me out. It was not an easy task. After spending 2, almost 3, weeks in straight vacation mode, getting down to business took a lot of motivation. Normally, during the first 2 weeks of orientation, we would go to orientation, come back to the hostel, take a nap, eat dinner, and then relax at the hostel or go out. Yesterday, the day before our "reality check," was a slap in the face. I laid out all of my papers, books, guides, etc. and tried to organize. Here is proof of all my teaching material:
The first day of class in pretty much any school usually consists of "syllabus day." It is pretty much the same here in Chile. All 6 of my classes are Basic Level 1 English so I can plan all of the lessons to pretty much be the same. My lesson plan went as follows: I introduced myself, had the students introduce themselves, went over the "reglamentos" (the rules) of the class, talked about basic classroom language, and did some more ice breakers. I know the rest of the semester will be a lot different but as of right now I feel pretty good about teaching. It is pretty neat to think that I am more or less the students' first real exposure to English but it is also a lot of pressure.
It is VERY weird that I am on a different schedule now. I have been so used to living in the hostel with the other teachers in my program and all being on the same schedule but now some of us have morning classes and some of us have evening classes. Also, some other teachers in the program left for the coast this past Thursday so the hostel is a lot more quiet. But we had a good last night with everyone in the program and I am sure we will all reunite in the middle of the program.
As I am slowly adjusting to the Chilean culture and Spanish, I know that, come December, I will feel so much different. I know teaching will be a challenge, but I enjoy challenges. I like diving right in and seeing how fast I can swim. I also look forward to knowing my way around a MASSIVE city. Seriously, Santiago is SO big. I have been here for almost 3 weeks and I feel like I have barely even seen a fourth of it. It is weird going from a city where I drive everywhere to a city where I take the metro every single day to and from work. Almost every single time I get on the metro it is PACKED. Even though Santiago is so big, I know that the coast is only an hour and a half away and ski resorts are about the same. Teaching, speaking Spanish, living in a big city and finding new friends are all part of the new adventure that I have just embarked upon :)
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