Only days after I posted the last blog I was confronted with my most challenging obstacle of this year; considering to terminate classes. If I haven’t mentioned it already, teaching English here has probably been one of the biggest fish out of water experiences of my whole life. First of all, English grammar has never been my strong point which produces a bit of struggle trying to teach it. Secondly, I have no formal teaching training but only a few weeks of classes with language professors, help from my host sister who teaches English and 16 years of school attendance (all of which have proved helpful but still lacking). On top of all this, I am faced with so much inconsistency in attendance that many times I find myself teaching 1 or 2 students in a class that theoretically should have 10 or more.
And inhere lies the problem, after a good few weeks of having so much inconsistency that I could barely advance with the material I was ready to end it; ready to close the classes and work with the few that had shown the most interest and were most consistent in attendance. This had me pretty worked up and consumed all of my thoughts the following day with questions like, ‘What can I say to students?’ ‘What did I do that made them not come?’ ‘How should I go about classes?’ etc. Basically, I was at a complete loss in how to handle the situation and it showed. So much so in fact that my host family easily detected my change in attitude and by lunch had probed me enough that I finally told them what was bothering me. Having vented my frustrations I was able to talk through possible solutions with Laura, my oldest host sister who has a sort of organizer role for my classes, which helped calm my anxiousness and give me a decent direction in which to proceed. When it all came to rest I didn’t end up closing any classes, attendance somewhat solidified and I continue to teach the classes I started with.
Although I contemplated not posting this blog because of its possible negative perception, I reconsidered hoping it would give a more complete image of what I’m experiencing and it also gives me the chance to tell you what an excellent and perceptive host family I’ve been given and share how valuable there help has been with not only this exlusive event but the year in its entirety. I leave you with a recent photo of us in our normal routine of hanging out on weekday nights.
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