In six weeks of Peace Corps training, Megon and I have never been so relieved for the week to finally end. It was a great week, one that was filled with real Costa Rican teaching experiences and valuable ideas for lessons and strategies. But man, there were definitely long, and sometimes stressful days.
The TEFL (Teaching English as a Foreign Language) crew had Tech Week from Monday to Thursday. Tech Week is a week Peace Corps incorporates into its 3-month training schedule for all volunteers. Traditionally, Tech Week involves trainees visiting real-life volunteers to observe how they perform in their jobs. Considering this is the first year for TEFL volunteers in Costa Rica, we had no volunteers to visit, so our program directors came up with a game plan that turned out to be absolutely amazing, especially with the nine trainees that live in our tiny town of La Fila. Here were the main two objectives: 1. Design and deliver two different English classes of about 150 minutes; 2. Define strategies for inviting community members to the classes.
Because there are nine of us (we are the biggest group of trainees in one community), we decided if we just invited our host parents and their kids we’d have enough to meet the requirements – no more than 15, no less than four. All we did was tell our host families and, much to our surprise, we reached the maximum capacity (30) on Monday. My partner teacher and I did a lesson on “telling time.” We had the kids make clocks out of recycled cardboard squares and paperclips. It was super cheap and super fun! Megon and her partner teacher did lessons on “giving directions” on Monday and Wednesday. Both of her lessons were complete hits! The turnout Wednesday wasn’t as good as Tuesday (21), but better than expected considering our lack of advertising around town. In fact, some folks didn’t come the second day because they wanted more than just two classes. Understood.
Other than learning how to teach effectively to native Spanish speakers, we also learned the magnitude of La Fila’s interest level for learning how to speak English. It’s really too bad all nine of us are leaving in less than a month – this place could really use a TEFL teacher to hold English classes outside of the school setting. English is mandatory in elementary and high school here, but with those classes come a variety of challenges – keeping the curriculum relevant for Costa Ricans, hiring teachers who know how to speak or teach English effectively, finding ways to use English outside the classroom, etc. These are the challenges we are here to help Costa Rican teachers figure out.
The school year ends Dec. 17, the day we swear in as official volunteers. From there, we go to our future host community. School doesn’t start again until the beginning of February, which gives us plenty of time to plan, meet the teachers we’ll be mentoring, starting some non-formal English classes, and of course, having some fun in this beautiful country.
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