Future Volunteers

This post is for the people who may search blogs for a different view on this experience working with the English Open Doors Program in Chile.  I am on my last week, and this has been a great experience.  I have been living in Arica, Chile for almost a year.  The program has 4 month, 6 month and a 9 month program.  I don't know what the future will hold for the program, however they are starting to recruit schools that only have basico students(elementary,5th-8th grade).  The reason for this, is because of the 'tomas' that have been taking place this entire school year, If you don't know what a toma is, it is a take over of the school by the students to bring about change.  In this year's case it is because the students want free college education.  I worked at a semi-private catholic school, but the public school down the street has been in toma for about 5 months now.  So I do not know if the future volunteers will be placed in only basico schools, but it seems like a good idea, since you don't want to do nothing for a month or perhaps 5.  My school was in toma for 2 weeks and it was so boring.

MONEY:   The fee as off 2011, was a 500 dollar insurance fee, and after speaking with some people who got sick(one Canadian had his lung collapse in Santiago) that their experiences have been overall really good and got taken care of.  Obviously the program does not cover the cost of airfare, so that is a bit more money.  But you do live with a host family, so you do not need to pay for food, I did however pay for my PB and J for my mornings, and OJ after nights on the town.  Alcohol and beer is about the same price as the states, and of course it cheaper at the liquor store than at the bar/disco.  [in ARICA] If you do want to get a taste of restaurants/local places, lunches are like 5 dollars.  Dinner is a lot more expensive especially if you want some gringo type food.  Drinks(beer) are always more expensive at restaurants.  All in all I think food and drinks are about the same price in the states.  Also, the exchange rate to the Chilean Peso was around 500 to 1 USD.  So it's weird seeing bills with so many numbers, something that costs 50,000( 50 mil) is around 100 dollars, and a 10 mil bill, which is blue = $20.

HOST FAMILY:  My knowledge of host family problems are this: had a friend in Santiago where his host family was 2 sisters that were 27 and 28, they didn't know how to cook, I guess, so he asked to be placed in another host family.  It worked out in the end.  Other problems I heard of is that a couple that lived together moved into 3 different host families and decided that it wasn't for them and they finally moved into a hostal for the last 2 months(they were in the 4 month program).  I guess some people value their freedom.  You must remember you living with a host family that WILL treat you like a part of the family, so some family rules may be there.  Along with that, you're joining a family, you will be able to see/feel the family dynamic they have.  Think about your family and if someone moved in with you.  They may think some things are odd and outlandish, but there is always history to things and of course all families have their problems... I know they're at least 2 families per volunteer in case problems like this occur.

In my experience, I think I got lucky with my host family.  I wouldn't say I am one of a kind, but I like to go out a lot, it is a part of my personality.  They were fine with it, I got my own key, I didn't get badgered too much when I came home late.  But another volunteer living in the same city as me, never received a key, making her come home at a decent time, another had a curfew(during the week).  Obviously if your a girl, your probably going to get treated different.  My family was afraid of the 'calle' of street.  I lived in a pretty poor neighborhood in college and I guess I was used to the shenanigans that occur in those areas.

VISA:  you do receive a one-year visa in Chile, no matter what program you enroll.  That makes traveling around South America a lot better, but a friend from China could not cross into Peru's border, because of his nationality.  So beware, I was also told you could pass through the border with just you carnet(cedula/national ID card).  I didn't try, I went to Argentina and Peru and brought my passport with me the entire time.

TRAVEL:  I have lived in the north the entire time I was here, but everyone and their mother told me that the south of chile is ABSOLUTELY beautiful.  Can't give you that experience, sorry. However, depending where you are placed you have easy access to Argentina, Peru, and Bolivia.

SKIING/BOARDING:  I went to Portillo for a week, it is AWFULLY expensive, Valle Nevado I heard is a lot cheaper, however if you look at the pictures from my trip to Portillo, try and go on a day trip to Portillo if you can.

RELIGION:  Majority of the country is Catholic, I am catholic so it didn't bother me.  They are not overtly practicing Catholics either.  They were some 'catholic festivals' or like pilgrimages, and that is all and the other volunteer's experienced. My head teacher also told me the volunteer before me at the school did not participate in any religious/catholic things, no problems there.  Also there was a large group of Mormons in Arica, like American Mormons that tried to convert people. 

FOOD:  Chileans eat a huge lunch and eat/drink tea at night, they call it once(yes like the number 11).  They eat bread and butter for breakfast, I couldn't handle that so I went out and bought PB&J's for breakfast.  Other than that, if your a vegetarian, it might hard to find food, especially if you don't eat eggs.  From others experiences I have found that usually a host mom's cooking is wonderful, mine however, wasn't that good.  Perhaps I was spoiled, because my mom(real) is an excellent cook.  They eat a lot of bread and your family will try to get you to gain weight rather than lose it, keep that in mind and the 'pan(bread) bellies'

TEACHING:  Teaching is a great experience, the kids in Chile have a lot less discipline than the kids in the US(from my memory).  I would compare them to the kids in inner-city schools.(at least in the CPS).  Some kids don't want to learn, some kids are awesome.  I have found that usually the majority of the ones that don't want to learn English are the more out going students and are easy to get along with.  I definitely suggest getting your TEFL Certification, it does give you the basics, however some are super expensive so beware.  The English Open Doors program gives an orientation in Santiago for a week, before your classes start, it is nice, but basic level, a little off(IMO).  There are 3 models which you can decide with your head teacher on how you want to teach.  One is teach together you(native speaker) doing most of the talking/speaking in class.  Two is you just taking the best kids in the class, basically conversing with them the entire time.  Three, the one that 'we' chose is take half the class(of 45) teach/do them something that goes along with what the head teacher is teaching for half the time(45 mins) and then switch to the other half of the class.

LANGUAGE:  Chileans speak 'Chilean'.  They do not(running joke there) speak Spanish or Castellano.  The cut off(eat) the half of almost every word. para=pa, mas =ma, they have many strictly Chilean words not used in the world of Spanish speakers such as: flaite, fome, bacan, chachai?, and weon(can be vulgar).  I was talking to a British man I met and we was telling me they(Chileans) can have conversations with two words: Chachai? and weon.  It's true, it's what you hear the majority of the time.  If you know some Spanish, that is great, majority of the teachers will love that you are trying to speak with them, or if you don't know Spanish the teachers(family or friends) will try and use their English, which is always a plus.  Your students will rip you apart on every mispronunciation.  On the other hand, I don't know if I would recommend learning Spanish here from scratch, it really is super different.  However, on the plus side to all of this is that Chileans speak super fast, and once your brain figures it out, you should be able to understand any Spanish speaker(IMO).

That's about it.  If you are seriously interested in going to Chile, buy a culture shock book, they are pretty good and they go more in depth.  I won't go into the culture, that is something you need to read the entire blog for and/or experience for yourself. If you have any questions ask me.

Read this about the Application Process, if you are a bit more interested.

Among other things...

Baptism

Martina was Baptized, they don't baptize the children as babies, but as little ones.  Basically another reason to throw a party.

Martina and I.

A guy came and cooked Chinese food for us, a Chilean favorite.

Home made cake.

Where we celebrated ate/drank all day.

Some night playing apples2apples - From this point on, Tearrie had my camera and took the majority of the photos

Public Speaking

Daniela, my student.

Judges.

Me presenting.

2nd place from Colegio Abraham Lincoln, she spoke about ballet.

1st place, she spoke about the band Queen, her English is very good, and her dad is German, so she knows Spanish, German, and English.

4th place, she spoke about the UK, she is from  the only all-girls school in Arica.

Winner's circle, there were 4 other students in the first two rounds, but they scored the least and therefore didn't make it to the next two rounds.

The pictures are from the 4th round.  They did this with the debates as well.  They have these competitions like soccer games here.  It's a little messed up.  Ok, so there are two rounds and they average your score on both of them to see who wins.  Like in Soccer, they always play two games, one at home and one as away, but they add the goals from the first game to the second for the overall score of who goes on/wins the championship.  Anyway I don't agree with this, just do it once and get it over with, you usually have one shot in life to get it right.  It also makes it incredibly boring to hear the same public speeches two times in a row.  I 'coached' my student Daniela, I basically changed her speech so it was in 'good' English, not just translated over.  I also went over the pronunciation with her, but its hard, because she said the words right with me, but after a night, she reverted back about half the time.  Also we took out the words that were very difficult to say, and changed them, by use of a thesaurus.  She did speeches about Cleopatra, and JK Rowling(harry potter author). By the way, all of the participants were girls.  Majority of my good students in my classes are girls...

Going to different school recruiting

So the three volunteers and our representative here in Arica went to multiple different schools to recruit for our program.  The schools need to be a top tier school and have a good family/space for the us 'exchange volunteers'.  We went to about 6 schools, half were basico schools, like elementary schools, because Nicole's school has been in toma for about 3 months and she hasn't been teaching.  So I think the ministry of education wants to limit the number of volunteers in high schools where they are more likely to go in toma.  The most interesting  school I went to was huge in comparison to my school.  It has about 4000 students from pre-school to seniors in high school.  It really was ginormous, however what really interested me was their program in English for the pre schoolers and kindergarteners.  They are introduced to a lot of English as a young age, I think this is very helpful.  I would love to come back to see how these preschoolers are doing 14 years from now as seniors and see what level their English is at.  The pictures are from the 4000 student school: Liceo Domingo Santa Maria

Explaining their English Program.

The majority of everything on the walls is in English.

Sala numero uno.

Missing an I in Spring.

Goodbye Party, Parents/School/Program

We all went to a expensive restaurant, that didn't taste very good, quite odd right?  Anyway, The pictures will show everything.  My host mom started crying when she gave her speech, I teared up a bit. Pictures, we went dancing after with our representative after.

Tearrie and Nicole's host families.

Middle: Bonnie, Right: Hannah, Two English 'fellows' from the US state department to help in Teaching English.

My host family, Host teacher Anita, English Department head across from me: Marisol, and our principle, Luis Santos.  At the head of the table the Public Speaking Winner got invited to our dinner, Gabriela.

Cutting a Rug.

Formal Thanksgiving

We had a Formal Thanksgiving party ran by some program that does stuff with English.  It was really boring. It was nice to speak English with Chileans that knew it well, however the older lady at my table was a complete mollusk.  Anyway we had kareoke after I sang JT - rock your body. Haha, It actually was kinda funny, but everyone else sang normal songs, it cut into OUR going away party at the bar, which made us want to get out of there even quicker.  The majority of the people here were women as well. Perhaps English here is gender thing?  Some pictures:

All girls table. Everyone spoke English.

My table.

Association's Banner.

The leaders of the Association.

In our Formal wear.

Goodbye Party Friends

At the bar, bought two handles of Rum for everyone, so it was free until they ran out.  I received a cool hat. Daniel somehow shattered the bathroom sink...  about 30 people came, it was packed.  Daniel is the owner of the bar and we stayed after the doors closed.

Us gringos.

Have a good trip.

On the way home. nice and early.

Tearrie's School Thanksgiving Dinner

Tearrie's school had a semi-formal Thanksgiving dinner with all her students in their junior year of high school. My school has around 80 juniors, her's has 160.  Her school is a lot bigger than mine.  Anyway the students received a grade for this, they were placed in groups and had to make a table with table cloth, food/drink and silverware, the whole 9 yards.  I think almost everyone served roasted chicken.  I got invited because Tearrie doesn't eat meat and I ate it instead.  By the way, many Chileans asked me about Thanksgiving, they call it Accion de gracias, they do not celebrate it.

Our table with the other tables in the background.

Live music, all in English.  The lead singer of this band is a bassist as well, heaven.

All the students with me, yes im rocking a mohawk.

Going Away Party/Last Day of School

Some of my classes might not have been the best English students I have ever had, but in the end they make up for it by being super nice.  Almost all of my students told me that they wanted me to stay.  They threw little parties for me, wrote notes to me, gave me a few presents.  I have never ever felt like that before.  It feels quite amazing. 

Sophomores.

Juniors.

8th graders.

3ero A

One of my favorite classes.

Last Supper with my Host family.

They invited a few of their friends over after. Boris loves chinese food, so we ate that.

Boris bought like 7 bottles of wine.

Missing my Host mom, but here are the ladies.

The guys.

Wedding

Chilean Wedding, I got invited to a Chilean wedding Its basically the same as in the states.  They had one thing a little different, maybe people do this in the states, I don't know, they played like a video with pictures and stuff.  It was really pretty.  Anyway a lot of the basico teachers were there.  I danced a little bit, but the chileans dance in like 2 lines, like the couples facing eachother, it's super fome.  It was open bar, I had a great time.

Christopher is the one next to me, others are teachers at the school.

Women Teachers.

Miscellaneous Pictures:

Plaza that has been under construction since I have been here.

Nicest mall/eating area in Arica.

They sell stuff on the street like any other city here in Arica.

I miss...

Home:  Family obviously, my Friends though a lot more.  Yea I talk to my parents every week or two, but my Chilean friends just don't compare to my friends in the US.  Maybe I am just used to drunken football players, but it's something I miss.  I miss the food, pizza is a big one, real mexican food, mountain dew, and last but not least, I miss Guinness.  I miss driving. I miss my big comfortable bed. Watching Blackhawks games in HD on a big screen.  I miss going to a sports bar, I miss an actual bar(like with barstools).  I miss stores being open from 1-5pm, and open on Sundays.

Chile: I will miss my friends that I have made in Chile, they are some cool people, I have made plans with them to do something in the next year or so, so we will see if that pans out.  I will miss getting badgered at by my host grandma everyday, being called crazy, and badgering right back at her.  My host grandpa is just THE MAN, he is just the happiest man.  I'll miss my host family in general, but they could never replace my family, obviously.  I will miss the Artesennal(micro brewed) beer on draft at the bar.  Walking to school everyday.  Having home cooked meals everyday.  I will miss staying out until 7/8 am.  Majority of my students, and other teachers.  Wearing football shorts everyday, because it is so hot here.  I will miss the weather(55-75), but I welcome my 4 seasons. I will miss feeling like I am making somewhat of a difference.  I don't know if I can just get any job and feel the same way.  I will miss the ever so rare hot latina, which has a boyfriend or a child.  I will probably miss smoking, at least indoors.  I will miss my most basic phone ever... Since I am writing this before I am leaving Chile, I in fact do not know what I will truly miss until it's gone. Maybe I'll update this(for my personal use) when I get back home.

All I got for now, this was my sister's idea..

Last month in Chile, Teaching English?

Sister sent me a message saying there has been nothing on the blog, well, not much has been happening here in Arica. I am down to my last two weeks, but here are some things to consider over the past month.  There was Halloween, the Chileans have copied us in the whole Halloween customs.  They do dress up, well most do, some Chileans don’t like the fact that they copied it from us, so they don’t dress up.  The kids do have like a parade, but it was like a week after Halloween, but they did go out during Halloween to go trick or treating.  No one came to our house, well that I can remember.  I didn't get pictures of the kids, because well I didn't have my camera on me when they left, and I left to go have my own fun and they returned while I was gone.  The bar was a little festive, for Halloween. We didn’t dress up, as most of my friends were in the I don't like copying Halloween boat.   

Some friends on Halloween, Daniel and Rodrigo.

However I was able to manage to wait for the Zombie parade through the center. Here is a pic/video.

Above in the video, the kid that comes up and give me a handshake is my student.

Some Halloween cheer, spider webs, eww.

Mostly, I have been hanging out with a few teachers at the school, watched multiple games of La Universidad de Chile(soccer team) they are in the running for another South American Cup.  And La Roja or Selecion de Chile has been playing in a large tournament to see who plays in the world cup from South America, as there are only 4 spots and like 6 teams, including Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, Paraguay, Uruguay.(maybe more).  Anyway Brazil doesn't have to be in the tournament, because, well they are hosting the 2014 world cup, and they get a pass. So, yea the teams are playing for a the world cup almost 3 years away, showing you the importance of soccer here in the southern hemisphere and really the world in general.  Soccer to me, is a lot of luck. The tecnicos(coaches) don't do much besides replace 3 players a game.  It's nothing close to American football, to where the coaching schemes are super important, and to win you rely not only on a bit of luck, but precision and teamwork.  Anyone who has played football(american) can tell you, it is a chess match.  Unlike soccer to where I watched a game today and the skill of one player can really take over the game(Chile's own Alexis Sanchez, who plays for the best team in the world, Barcelona).  He by the way is on many commercials here selling anything you can place under the sun.  Much like in Chicago with our two baby faced hockey players: Patrick Kane and Jonathan Toews.

Enough about sports, I have learned a great deal about Chilean culture and perhaps Latin culture in general.  However, I won't go into great detail at all, well because I will have nothing to talk about come Christmas time with everyone. ;P

Today the firefighters came to school and put on a little show.  The firefighters here are called bomberos and they are all volunteers.  Not one of them gets paid.  True testament to these guys… However, I’ll let the pictures do the talking…

All the students out of class to watch, I am up there on the 3rd floor in the corner, I stole the pictures from a friend(who is the IT guy at school)

They laid a student under like a old rusted bed frame? Anyway they used some air-compression jaws of life to cut it away to get the student out.  He was they laid on a stretcher and carried off.

I think the Chilean firefighter's helmets are cool looking.  They started the ground on fire too, with the lighter fluid.

The little guys got to come up and try the helmet on and touch the jaws of life thing.  They also got to spray the hose on the barrel that had the fire.

If you go back tot he first picture you can see this guy on the roof, he rappelled down.

Last but not least, the last guy went down a zip line, which they said thay can use with the Morro(look at the top picture of the blog) I don't belive that though.

Anyway all the students got out of a class to watch and I think it is a good idea to get the student familiarized with what the Bomberos look like, they would look pretty scary the first time you see them and your in a fire.

With less than 2 weeks left, I have “no classes” next week, but I do want to want to come to school to say goodbye, I don’t know whether there is a going away party or whatever at the school, but I would like to say goodbye to some of my students.  However the other two volunteers here and I have planned a going away party at the bar on Saturday.  I hope a few friends I met in the beginning, but lost touch with come by.  Besides that, Boris’ friends had a going away asado[bbq] for me this past Saturday.  I went to the beach at noon and had an asado there with some friends and then went to the other asado.  It was fun, I received two t-shirts, and a Chilean Flag as going away presents...  I did kind of get choked up at the asado with Boris' friends, but maybe drinking all afternoon and night had a part in it...

I have yet to write about teaching English in the blog, to tell you the truth it isn't too glamorous and I have 8th graders to Juniors in High School.  So they really aren't that cute(as opposed to 1st-3rd graders) to take pictures.  I basically have them create things in English.  Like today I had them make an invitation for a made up party, because their unit is on parties.  Tomorrow my 8th graders are on the music unit so I'll have them make up a review of their favorite band.  Others in the past, like for things they 'must' do, I hand out slips with jobs on them and have them write 5 things their job 'must or have to' do(doctor:wash their hands..ie).  In the past if I cannot come up with something decent like that(have them create/make up something in English) I use their units for support. The harder grammar points like comparatives and superlatives(very different from Spanish), I draw three distinct people on the board and have them say who is fatter/fattest, happiest, angrier, taller, and so on.  I also have had them work on crossword puzzles for opposites(sometimes adding a few letters for harder opposites), word scrambles for words that are tricky(double consonants) to spell.  Fun stuff so they don't get bored.  But sometimes I have to have them take notes so they learn new grammar techniques, some reinforcement from their regular English teachers. If all else fails we play hangman, but my 'classroom' is in the second floor of the library and they usually go nuts/loud, so the library person gets mad as people are trying to make up tests.  So yea, being a volunteer is kinda fun, they do get out of hand and their discipline level is very different from the states.  But all of my students ask me questions about the US.  My highest level class is the best, I just get them to speak, pure conversation.  It's good for them to work on pronunciation, and just speak in English.  They do enough of the Writing, Listening, Reading, in their normal class.  Also bringing up Reading, I do print out them articles for ESL students to read.  But I have found I cannot up stand up there are read.  They wont listen, So with some trail and error, I began taking out about 15-20 words from the articles so they HAVE to listen.  They usually re-read the article anyway, before answering questions.

So that's it for teaching English, I hope that helps other volunteers-to be who are reading this, if any do. And it gives you the basic idea of what I have been doing here.  It is still hard to retain their attention at times, about 20% of my students don't care, others care for their grade or 'mark' and the others have been taking English classes at the British Institute here or have learned from watching US TV programs, like Friends, which is really popular. Or music, like the beatles are really popular with some of my students along with Justin Bieber, and Lady Gaga.

I feel like I've been running along now with this blog post, but one more thing, I met 3 German girls over the weekend and brought them to the bar.  They didn't know Spanish very well, and two lived in the States for a bit, so their English was perfect.  They also said that it is impossible to go back to dubbed US TV shows in German in Germany once you know English. Even though they took English classes for years they all told me that listening to music and watching TV was the way they learned a lot.  Only if there was some exciting TV programs in Spanish, I haven't found any yet.  They all watch soap operas(yea think of the Mexican channels where the guy hits the girl and yea...).  But I have found a Chilean Band I like.  Chico Trujillo, I suggest you listen to this song by them, it is one of my favorites:

Chico Trujillo - Loca, offical verison.

Loca again, Acoustic, in Barcelona.(by the way they played at lollapoloza in Chicago this past year)