Master of the Ingles

18/1/2009

For the last several years of my life, Sundays have meant a combination of the following: hangovers, western omelettes, coffee, Vitamin Water, trap shooting, Packers games, and repeat viewings of “The OC” or “Titanic” or “Love Actually” or whatever other questionable DVDs we found laying around our apartment at school. Oh, and vaguely contemplating the 10-12 page paper due at 9AM on Tuesday. Sundays nowadays? English. I mean, we’re talkin’ all the English you can handle, baby.

Take today, for example. I woke up to a steady downpour, and the sinking feeling that goes along with knowing you have to walk out into it (and then walk through it for a couple hours each way). Surrendering to Madre Nature, I packed up my regular day-outing stuff – change of top layers, a banana and tangerine and some bread, water bottle, toilet paper (an absolute necessity), my Buck knife (yeah, a little aggressive, as some have noted, but she cuts a mango or avocado like nobody’s business), hand sanitizer, camera, a few other items – threw on my rain jacket and a plastic poncho over top of everything, and set out for the “caserio” of Naranjo, where I had a date with about 10 eight-to-eighteen year-olds in a couple hours.

My English classes have been awesome so far. I was pretty anxious about the idea at first: whether anyone would show up, whether language/age barriers would be a problem, whether I could manage a class without any training or materials whatsoever, you name it. But to my surprise and relief, Day One a few weeks ago was actually a ton of fun, and my subsequent classes have been rolling along smoothly. The kids are awesome and hilarious; definitely a handful, but really great kids overall. I can’t go anywhere in Chalaco without at least a few of them shouting “MATEE-OOO!!!” and asking when the next class is for the fourth time today, or telling me some long-winded story in a single breath about their pig that ran away, or just running up and punching me in the leg and then running along to their next adventure. It’s summer vacation down here (weird, right?) and the vast majority of kids stick around during the three-month break, either to help out in the fields, or to just hang out and watch cartoons and play around in the mud.

In that respect it’s been interesting to observe the differences between the kids in Chalaco and those from Naranjo, farther out into the “campo.” On the surface they’re more-or-less identical, but the biggest difference surfaced when we talked about the schedule for our classes. In Naranjo Sunday is the only day that works for virtually all the kids, boys as well as girls, because they’re busy working with their parents (boys in the fields and girls around the home) from Monday through Saturday. In that regard, it’s pretty damn cool that they’re so excited to come learn English on their one day off (this also helps motivate me to walk a couple hours in the rain to teach them when I could easily roll over and go back to sleep). In contrast, the kids in Chalaco are free all the time, and have a hard time understanding that I actually have other work to do. In any event, there’s virtually no summer programming in either town, through the schools or otherwise. Which is disappointing, but also means that I have nothing to compete with. So I’m teaching two classes a week to kids in Chalaco and one a week in Naranjo (today I taught one in each town, and then, just to really hammer the English theme home, headed over to Miguel’s house to translate a guitar-tuner manual for him). I’m thinking about adding another session per week in Chalaco due to overwhelming demand from my new army of “chibolos,” and I’ve got a bunch of adults who have been hounding me to start a class for them, so starting next Monday we’ll see if they put their money where their mouths are.

The hike to Naranjo is beautiful. Or has been up til now. Now it’s just a mess of ankle-deep mud and one-time seasonal creeks which have now swelled to fast, brown rivers and present some interesting crossings. But as I have for the last few weeks, I got to the “secondaria” (high school) on time, opened up the classroom and swept out some of the water which had flooded about half of it, changed my soaked top layers, and waited for the “alumnos.” Some of them were already hanging around, but no amount of coaxing can get them to come inside until there are at least five or six present, and even then it takes a particularly bold one to lead the movement inside. Not sure if this is because I’m a ridiculously tall gringo or if Peruvian youngsters timid by nature; we’ll see as time goes on. In any case they eventually came in and sat down and class got into swing.

Lacking any experience or training teaching or even really working at all with kids in a classroom, I’m making this up as I go. I had a manual with tips for teaching English, but that got swiped along with most of my valuables in Lima. Bummer. So thus far we’ve stuck to the basics: ABC’s, numbers through 20, colors, parts of the body, and greetings. I’ve never given much thought to what English must be like to a non-speaker, but I’m realizing that we speak a pretty weird language compared to others. Take a look at the word “eight” and try to tell me what the hell’s going on there. Thus, pronunciation has proven to be the most difficult part. In that numerical example, for instance, I have to write out “eight” and then, underneath, “ét” in parenthesis so the kids can try to make some sense of how to pronounce it. Similarly, our sounds for “th,” “z,” “v,” “g,” “j,” and a few others are not only unfamiliar to Spanish-speaking kids, but they’re sounds that actually don’t exist in their repertoire (try saying “arroyo” and roll the “r” the way Spanish-speakers do – tough, right?) So that’s taken some getting used to. I’m also finding myself coming up against the traditional Peruvian teaching methods to which these kids have become accustomed. I don’t know much about primary education, but I know that kids in the States are pushed from an early age to think for themselves and flex their creativity. Here it’s all dictate-and-copy. I know these kids must be shier than usual around me, but I’m convinced that for many of them, it’s also the first time they’re ever been asked to practice a phrase with their neighbour or even to speak up and ask questions if they don’t understand something. Thus, if you go by number of questions asked (or not asked), I would say every single student has completely understood every single thing I’ve told them. I’m the world’s best teacher.

Some interesting surprises: body parts – “head and shoulders” is pretty much synonymous with shampoo, so they’ve picked up on those two pretty quickly. Unfortunately, for the same reason the song “Head, shoulders, knees and toes” has been more difficult than I thought, because they always want to put the “and” between the first two words. Also, the fact that the version they know goes “Head, shoulders, legs, and feet” has been tough to get around. Secondly, most kids – including my three year old brother at home – know the numbers in English up to ten, after which point they hit a brick wall. We’re working on it. Third, (I guess not surprising, but...) kids love to run around. I’ve adapted “Duck, duck, goose” to whatever it is we’re learning (“Hello-my-name-is-Mateo,” with the kid’s name being the equivalent of “goose,” for example), which has been cool, but it’s all they wanna do now. It’s also getting increasingly dangerous as their comfort levels increase, along with the rising water levels in the classrooms from week to week. They’re also really into hangman, which I’ve found is a pretty good way to practice not only new vocab but also the ABC’s and body parts. That’s about as far as we’ve gotten, and I’m running out of ideas. I’m heading down to Piura tonight for a couple days – first time in a month, can’t believe it’s been that long – and hopefully can get some ideas from other volunteers. If not we’re just gonna keep playing “Duck, duck, goose” til someone tells me to stop. For the adults I think I’m probably gonna need something a little more substantial, though.