I am so sorry—I have been so focused on starting school and applying for jobs that I have barely taken any pictures this week! These are just pictures of me in my super cool Colegio Americano polo! I feel quite professional, if not exactly stylish! The uniforms that the Ecuadorian teachers wear are much more professional, actually; some of them have to wear pinstripes and vests! It depends on where you work and where you come from! I am pretty happy with my polo, though the thickness is not that great in the heat. Since last week, everything has been focused on planning for my unit, getting the classroom ready, looking ahead to the fall, and actually getting the kids into the classroom! I apologize in advance for the length of this entry, but it was a big week, since I finally met my kids!
On Friday and Monday we had more preparation for class, and on Tuesday the first course class spent their first day on campus. This is their first year in secondary, though most of them are not new to Colegio Americano, so they came a day earlier than the rest of the high schoolers. We had an assembly with the parents on Tuesday morning, where the rectora gave a speech about all of the opportunities they would have and about the vision of the school. After the parents had left, we all played an icebreaker, and we had a list of questions that we were supposed to ask each other. I did not ask any questions, but I wandered around through the crowd to let them ask me questions. When I say “crowd,” I mean crowd, by the way—we have between 120 and 140 seventh graders! That’s a big change from Clinton-Graceville- Beardsley in Minnesota, where I did my practicum last year. We had probably thirty seventh graders there. My first impression of them was pretty good, and I think they are adorable. The rectora, Miss Patricia, also seems very nice. Maybe I will finally get to meet her tomorrow—we are having a birthday party for her at the school.
Yesterday our task was to give all of our students the SLEP test, which stands for Secondary Level English Proficiency test, I believe. After that we graded, but we did not get them done until today. The sheets were scantron, but we did it the old-fashioned way: we had a cut-out answer sheet and a red marker with which to correct each test. I was so surprised when I finished them this afternoon; for awhile it felt like it was going to take the rest of my student teaching time! Since there are so many kids it is going to take quite awhile for all of us teachers to learn their names, but I’m going to work hard at it. They were split randomly for today, and probably will be tomorrow, too, but in the next few days they will be divided into four sections, two at higher English proficiency and two at lower proficiency. Very few of them are very comfortable, at least judging from their tests, but of course, standardized tests only measure ability so well! I had to really adjust my expectations while I was grading the tests, since I was not testing my students on something I had taught, and I had to get rid of the idea that they would all have at least half of the answers right. Some of them didn’t even fill in all of their bubbles, though they had time, which makes me sad because I know that doing that might affect them for the rest of high school. I told Mr. Dixon that I think I could have taken a test better in a language I had never studied at all than a few of the students did, but again, there are limitations of standardized tests, and some students would probably not do well at them in any subject. That is one very problematic part of the way that Colegio Americano does tracking: they are really only tracked by English proficiency level, so I still have no idea what to expect regarding general learning and language abilities.
We actually had three out of four randomly assembled groups today in class, and we went over the syllabus and procedures and introduced ourselves. Unfortunately, all of the classes were too big for all of the students to say their names today, so Mr. Dixon had them fold papers to make little “tents” with their names written on the front. We also talked with them about having more freedom and responsibility now that they are in secondary school, and hopefully they will respond positively to this idea. However, my day got more exciting when Mr. Dixon had to leave to get his picture taken with the other teachers, and I had to take over for two periods. The first one was actually the second that we had had with that particular section today, so I told them a little more about myself, asked questions about them, and gave them some fun ESL worksheets to do. The second period that I was in charge was with a new section, and it was actually the last hour of the school day, since the kids got out at noon, which meant the kids were respectively either very hot, very chatty, or just very tired. It was a bit difficult, and I’m really not sure how well I did. I tried to cover everything that Mr. Dixon had with the other two sections, but I teased them that I was not sure that they would ever really get the procedures down because they talked so much. A few times I stopped everyone and asked them what they thought would happen if I just let them talk whenever they wanted to, when I called on Philip, a kid up in the front, his eyes got big and he said, “We’d have chaos.” What a word for an ELL (English Language Learner)! The one native English speaker that I know we have is Thomas, who hails from England. He told me his parents are missionaries, and I don’t even remember how many different places he told me he has lived. Anyway, I still like the kids, but I was not happy that I had to yell as much as I did, last hour or not. After that, we had a few more kids come in to take the SLEP test, and then we finished grading a while before we both left school.
I’m sorry if this is too much information, but I know some of you will be interested in the details! So that was school stuff—now for social stuff. Not much to report this week! I stayed in Urdesa all weekend, though Mariana and Kiko had a big group of friends over for another fiesta con cangrejas (crabs). This group of friends is from high school, college, and a few other places. People kept getting added to their group as they moved, got married, and made new friends, and there were about ten of them over on Friday. We also had shellfish this time, which Mariana got from Peru. They were baked right in the shells with lots of parmesan cheese, which I loved, naturally! I had a lot of fun talking with Klaus, who went to German high school with Mariana. We mainly talked politics, and I found another person who hasn’t been very impressed with Rafael Correa. I have made it my goal to find someone in Guayaquil who agrees with the city’s native son, but I’m not sure where to look. The alcalde of the city, or mayor, does not support him at all, from what I understand. I have heard that this may be because Correa is socialist and Guayaquil is a big business center. Klaus was just so thoughtful, though. A few times he reminded people to talk more slowly so that I could understand them, which I appreciated, though I still didn’t understand the many Correa jokes. In case you didn’t know, Ecuador has an election coming up this month!
I mentioned last week that I went to Lili’s birthday party, but I did not remember to say that I met a girl named Gaby, yet another ex-alumna from Colegio Americano. She is an extremely sweet girl, and she is also a Christian. She invited me to come visit her church, and she gave me the address, which I promptly entered into Google. It is just a little church plant that meets in a restaurant, and I found out on the internet that the restaurant was close enough that I could walk, which made me very happy. Unfortunately, I found out on Sunday morning that the restaurant on Victor Emilio Estrada is not the same Parrilla del Ñato where the church meets, so I guess I will need to take a taxi. However, when I found out that the restaurant was not right, I went to Israel, the Baptist church on the same street, and I really liked it. I was a little late, so I missed most of the music, but I liked what I heard. Then some of the youth put on a skit about gang violence and some girls did a mime about going down the wrong “path” in life, and they did a really good job. After that the pastor gave a message about young people keeping their ways pure by living according to God’s commands. The banner at the front of the church said something like “Our desire: to have the next generation!” As I’ve mentioned before, Guayaquil is the biggest city in Ecuador, and there is quite a bit of crime, along with many temptations that young people could fall into. This church seems to be actively working against a lot of what is going on. The pastor preached from a few different verses, but especially from John 3, which talks a lot about salvation. I still plan to go to Gaby’s church soon, but I really liked going to “Israel.”
The other fun thing that I did this past week was go to a pizza party where Liam and Philip (AKA Mr. Dixon) study Spanish. Philip asked me sometime on Tuesday afternoon if I wanted to come, and I said pizza sounded amazing, so he wrote out the directions and my taxi driver and I found the place somehow! Two teachers were there, and three students, Liam, Philip, and Chikako, a woman who just moved here from Japan with her husband. The rule was that we had to speak only in Spanish, and it was fantastic. We all worked to help each other, and the teachers spoke slowly enough that we could understand. We mostly talked about food, one of my favorite subjects, and about witches, which you would have had to hear to understand! Jessica, one of the teachers, had a student from Norway once who brought gjetøst for her, which is Norwegian goat cheese. She loved it so much, but it is very expensive everywhere she has found it, so she has been craving it ever since. I laughed, because I got a big block for Christmas from my sister last year and never was able to finish it. It’s interesting stuff, if you haven’t tried it. Then the icing on the cake was that the pizza was from Pizza Hut, which will always be one of my favorite places. I’ve only had pizza once since I got to Guayaquil, and it was pretty disgusting, so this was a good fix! I really enjoyed it. It was also really fun to get to know Chikako; we shared a taxi on the way home, and she gave me her phone number and told me that I need to call her and come over so that she can cook me Japanese food! I hope to take her up on that offer!
I will let you go for now, dear reader, even though I’m sure I could think of something else to talk about. Next week I will try to post pictures of my fellow teachers—we are having a Mexican dinner tomorrow night, hypothetically, and I’m excited to get to know my coworkers better!
Pray for Philip, my cooperating teacher. He contracted pink eye last weekend (which is called “Chinese kick” in Ecuador), and he’s been wearing sunglasses and using eye drops all week. His roommate has it now, too, but I think it’s safe to say that I’m OK, because of how long he has had it.
Also pray for Nancy, the mom of my friend Amy, who has breast cancer and just had surgery this week. I have not heard about the results yet, but she and her family could use plenty of prayer!
Lastly, pray that I would do my best as a teacher, and that I would enjoy and love my students while still being in charge and doing my job. Oh, never mind, also pray for me as I start my job searching! I just sent in my résumé to my first school yesterday! It’s more scary than exciting right now, but only narrowly! Love to all! Chao!
Christina
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