teaching foreign languages

Teaching can be a rewarding experience.  It can also be equally trying.  Over the past ten months, I've taught English, Spanish and German classes in a variety of settings: at a university language centre, private lessons in my home and the homes of others and online classes and tutoring.

Teaching online has been my least favourite method as I crave human interaction and enjoy connecting with my students.

Face to face interactions do have their challenges though.  Sometimes students are rude.  Sometimes they're distracted.  Sometimes they simply don't want to try.  And sometimes they're too impulsive or too passive.  At other times those interactions are rewarding.  Sometimes I see that light-bulb moment.  Sometimes they're eager to learn.

I haven't had much inspiration to write lately, as the majority of my time is spent teaching or doing mundane household tasks, but I thought I'd share a few things from my classes this past month.

Tutoring online has proven to be a good way to earn a little extra cash, especially in American dollars, from home in between other things.  The majority of that time is spent helping students with Spanish, but occasionally, I help out with German as well.

As for classes at the language center, this past month I taught a Beginner 1 course and Elementary 2.  Beginner 1 is exactly what it sounds like, the first month of lessons which teach the subject pronouns, the verb "to be", colors, numbers 0-100, how to introduce oneself and the most immediate members of a family.  Sometimes the enrollment is low, but with 35 students on my roster this month, it was a challenge to keep them all busy, yet not too bored as some students pick up on English quickly and others do not.  My Elementary 2 class was the opposite, with usually only 2-4 students showing up to class, so group projects and games were limited.

As for private students, I've had quite the menagerie since I began teaching and would say that that continues to be the case.  Ranging in ages from eight to about fifty years old, I have students who come for two hours a day to others who I teach once a week.  Of the eight private students I currently teach, some are brilliant language learners, while others wish only to translate or impulsively respond hoping I'll give them the answers.  My lessons range from teaching adverbs while including dinosaurs in the sentences to spark interest, to pure grammar, to pure conversation to reading and deciphering news articles.  It depends upon each student's aims, needs and interests.

While teaching prive lessons has been quite the learning experience, has been a great source of income and has kept me busy, I look forward to receiving a visit from my youngest brother in one month  and saying Adios, Auf Wiedersehen, and Good-bye to those classes and spending more time with him :)   

5 Key people in Chiclayo who are often overlooked

Below are a list of key people in Chiclayo (in no particular order) who are often overlooked.

1. The cobbler and the shoe shiner

For the many women here who love to wear high heels, the cobblers save their days when the heels come off of their shoes at the most unexpected moments.  For the men who wear suits or at least dress pants to work, clean, polished shoes are an expectation.  With all the dust, dirt, and other waste in the city, who better than the shoe shiner to help them arrive at work looking their best?

2. Street vendors

From the woman who sells orange juice to quench the pedestrian's thirst, to the man selling cheap flash drives to those students who may have lost or forgotten theirs, to the men and women selling fruit and vegetables, to the women selling socks and the men selling watches and sunglasses, street vendors provide a quick, cheap easy way for people to purchase small things to help them better get through their day.

3. Tailors

A tailor's services are invaluable.  For the many Chiclayanos who don't own a sewing machine or have the skills to repair or resize clothing, their handiwork can extend the shelf-life of clothing or make is a much more respectable fit for its owner.

4. Plumbers, electricians and carpenters

Let's face it.  Most of us know next to nothing about plumbing, electrical wires and woodwork and even if we did, we don't have the necessary tools to fix our problems.  It's always handy to have these people's phone numbers to call for help when things at home go awry.

5. Taxi and Mototaxi drivers

Without taxi and mototaxi drivers, many people would be at a loss of how to get from one place to another quickly or transporting goods/possessions.  Not only do they provide quick transportation, but they also load and unload whatever goods are being transported and are a fantastic source of recent local news or public opinion.  

A walk through history

     Yesterday evening, Igor got home a little early from work, so we were able to spend about an hour and a half walking the newly constructed path depicting history from Lambayeque that is about a mile from our house.  With beautiful sculptures, small bridges, geometric benches and walkways and a giant texturized mural at the end, we witnessed several artists' depictions of life over the last milenium in this part of the country.
     In a city that really lacks green spaces and art, the new walkway is a huge improvement.  Just two years ago, that area was a long median of dirt and a sewage ditch.  The transformation is incredible.  I hope more positive changes continue to occur in the city.

A lovely day...

We've been extremely busy with work and wanting time to play, but unfortunately, we don't have nearly as much control over our working hours as we'd like.  On the bright side, Igor got his first pay check and while it may average out to only a quarter per hour, we were thrilled!

Yesterday, we finally got to spend time just having fun and ignoring work for a while :)  We both worked in the morning until early afternoon, then dressed up, went for a nice afternoon walk through the center of Chiclayo and enjoyed fresh fruit juice and a piece of crema volteada at a juice bar.  Back at our house after splurging on a taxi rather than a crowded Combi, we made pizza from scratch and had a good friend over to eat and talk until we were both too tired to think.

It is so refreshing to have time to relax and enjoy one another.  Hopefully it isn't another three months before we both get time off!

If I tell you the truth

     If I tell you the truth about what we've been up to lately, you'll probably be bored to tears.  I've been thinking I should post something about what we've been up to for some time, but then, I haven't felt like we've much of anything to talk about.
     I thought, perhaps, I could write about incredible adventures like our trek through the Amazon, our swim through a rapidly rising river or our hand in the capture of infamous thieves, but then, none of it would be true.  So, I'm left to share a few lines of our incredibly ordinary lives.
     Both Igor and I have been working quite a lot of hours.  He puts in 100-140 hours per week in the hospital and only has about a week left in his rotation of internal medicine.  He will then spend three months in pediatrics.  While Igor sees patients, writes prescriptions and suctions out undesirable fluids from other people's bodies, I teach language classes at the university, at my house or online.  Most of my English classes at the university's language center and the private lessons I teach are for low-level English learners, so I spend a good portion of my time speaking very slowly, repeating and rephrasing, using synonyms and writing English words with Spanish phonetics on the board.  This month, I also have had the pleasure of teaching Spanish to a middle-aged Englishman who is here doing volunteer work helping with youth soccer.  It's fun witnessing the learning process that I went through a few years ago and being able to explain a few things that I found challenging and seeing the excitement as he finally also grasps the concept.  Occasionally, I tutor Spanish and German online in the evenings when Igor is working at the hospital or busy in our apartment preparing for a presentation.  
     I had another strange job offer this week to teach at a school, but I prefer what I am doing now, so rather than go to the school, where I was already being offered the job, without them having met me, I told them plainly that I appreciated their consideration, but wasn't looking to teach in a school at this time.
     Besides for work, I've been dealing with immigration bureaucracy again.  As for my immigration paperwork, I travelled at the beginning of the month to apply for new updated marriage licenses from the Peruvian Consulate in the USA, because ours were now outdated!  This weekend I received a phone call telling me the documents have been electronically sent to Peru and that I can pay some more fees and travel to collect the printed copies to come back to Chicayo to continue visiting the immigration office and getting my papers in order before the next round starts all over again in August when I have to renew my resident's visa.
    Back at our house things are pretty calm for the most part, besides for the unpredictable weather.  We have a small gecko that lives in our apartment... seeming to prefer the mirror in the living room, my desk or the office curtains as his primary lurking spots.  I love seeing him.  It's a fun thing to look for where he'll be.  He makes at least a brief appearance most days.
     We had been hoping to take down our mosquito net at the end of this month, but that no longer seems like a good idea, as the mosquito population has surged once again.  This last week brought rain most nights as we are experiencing some of the effects of a weak El Niño system.  Rain makes this city disgusting and I will be happy to see it go..  I scoop up buckets of dirty water from our kitchen and sometimes dining room floors when we wake up because if the water that runs down the steps from the roof into our apartment.  I, as well as my students, have tried to avoid dirty water on the way to classes, but usually end up spattered or worse: with a shoe full of icky water- likely containing sewage.
     And there you have it, folks.  No exciting adventures, just mundane life.  But we're happy, and the world spins madly on.
     

Happy Women's Day!

     Two years ago today, I met my mother-in-law at a celebration for university employees celebrating women. While women's rights have attracted more attention and have improved in many parts of the world over the last century, there are still great strides to be made.  American women won the right to vote nearly 95 years ago, but women still don't have that right in Saudi Arabia or in Vatican city, although women will supposedly be allowed to take part in the Saudi local elections this year.
     It isn't just voting that demonstrates the advances (and sometimes lack thereof) of women's rights.  Women still earn less then men in most parts of the world.  My current job as a teacher at a university is one of the few jobs I've ever held in which I've earned as much as my male counterparts, when I've been just as or more qualified than they have been.
     I highly recommend the book "Half the Sky" by Nicholas Kristoff and Sheryl WuDunn for those of you who haven't read it.  Highlighting injustices women face around the world, primarily maternal health care, sex trafficking and domestic violence in Africa and Asia, the book gives insight into the resilience of women and the everyday struggles faced by many.
     Here in Peru, while machismo is less than it has been in the past, it is still very much alive in the behaviors and attitudes of both men and women.  It can be frustrating to step out onto the street only to hear cat calls and vulgar comments.  Just this week, I had a single woman in her forties tell me that she has had few boyfriends in her life because "no men like intelligent women."  I've heard other women say they couldn't continue with a once a week music lesson, because their husbands didn't know who they may associate with during that hour-long lesson.  Some of the women I worked with in my volunteer work in 2013 face domestic violence daily.  One woman younger than me with an 10-year-old daughter and a 7-year-old daughter, has a husband who held a knife to her throat when she gave birth to another daughter recently.  He told her she was worthless because she couldn't bear a son.  Are we still living in the time of Henry VIII?
     To those men who have left such archaic ways behind, who still know how to be chivalrous but help out in the house, respect women's abilities, intelligence and decisions, thank you.  To all women who work hard, who endure unacknowledged struggles, who demonstrate great resilience day in and day out, who love their children, who do the best they can to make this world a better place, to you, HAPPY WOMEN'S DAY!

Flowers from my father-in-law honoring the day :)

Hair

Yesterday, a young friend who lives on the first floor, knocked on my apartment door wondering if she could play with my hair.  After considering that it may be a welcome break from planning classes, I took her up on her offer and we both had fun :)