Why?

First off, I want to say that since, basically my sophomore year in college, 4 years ago, I have not written much of anything. You might wonder 'How did you not write anything in your last two years in college?' that question can be answered by two words: art student(I basically only wrote papers in Spanish).  So I want to apologize first off, if anyone even reads this, that my writing, probably won't be wonderful to read, however, hopefully it gets better.


Why did I chose to teach abroad. Well there really isn't simple answer to that question, as there are many reasons...


Spanish
I minored in Spanish in college, first to get out of a reading/writing class by taking foreign language classes.  I began with Spanish 101, as many of you know, usually you need to take 2 years of a foreign language to graduate high school.  I did take two years of Spanish in high school, however, my Spanish teacher freshman year ruined it for me. I hated Spanish after that and already decided on not taking it after my second year was complete. However, truth be told, I didn't pay attention, was disruptive in class and would rather talk and hang out with my friends in class. Anyway after taking Spanish 101 in college I was already in love with it.  Maybe because my professor was a great person/teacher, or perhaps one of my best friend's at the time was a Spanish major.  I continued to take Spanish courses in college and eventually made it to the 400 level courses where you basically have interesting in-depth conversations solely in Spanish. I was also fortunate enough as well to have under 8 people in every Spanish class after 102, which gets you involved and you really stick out if you don't do your homework or pay attention. But having a good professor makes it easy to participate and pay attention. Especially if you have that same professor for 3 years.  My Spanish is well enough to have conversations with the Mexicans I worked with during my summer job, and people that worked in Mexican Restaurants, even the Argentinians I met while on vacation in Mexico.  However, since those 2 years from graduating college, my Spanish speaking skills have dropped dramatically, as will any skill without practice. So wanting to continue with my skill of speaking Spanish I have chose to live in a Spanish speaking country, so I will forced to use it.

Argentina
Those of you that know me, know that was I all set up to spend a semester in Buenos Aires. However, one week before leaving, the trip was canceled due to swine flu.  I had the opportunity to then study in Spain, however, I was in Spain for 10 days 2 months before, and wanted to experience South America.  Another reason why I wanted to go to Argentina, is that my Spanish professor in college was from there and always insisted that I experience it.  So in order to live in South America, for anything long term, I would need a job.  A friend told me about her idea of wanting to go to South Korea to teach English.  This prompted my 'job' and way to live in South America.  Soon I was certified with a TEFL(Teaching English in Foreign Language) certificate, here.(I will probably post another entry on that experience)  So things were coming together to finally go to Argentina.  However, Argentina is a bit different than the rest of the world and TEFL.  There you do not have a job before going, like other countries(S. Korea, China, Europe), in Argentina, you go there and interview for jobs.  This is, in fact illegal, because you do not have a visa to do it and must leave the country every 90 days to renew your 'tourist visa' or get slapped with 300 dollar fine.  My parents/family were not eager about me going to another country without a job, however I did believe I could handle it...  In the end I found the program with Chile and decided to join that program, as I would have a job/host family all before ever leaving the US.  The downfall to that is the program is only 4 months long, rather than the full year I wanted to spend there, but I believe my Spanish skills will increase greatly living with a host family rather than in an apartment.

US and Society
Being in a couple contemporary art classes makes you think about society a bit differently. It had such a profound effect on me, that every single one of my art projects, besides paintings were about my society and the problems I had with it.  Most of the problems I have with 'our' society stem from myself and the ways I have acted. and still do act.  Some of those projects included: body image, movies(ie. fairy tale perception), and instant gratification(huge with me). With being catholic, and having a good friend become a theology teacher, brought me back to things like marriage, divorce, and morals.  Now with having these problems with the society in which you live, you cannot simply bash it, or I believe I cannot because I have never lived within another society and cannot draw comparisons. Basically another reason why I would love to live in another country to see how that society is run.  I fear that our global/business reach has already impacted the world enough to find out these problems issues have incorporated themselves in the world as a whole.

TEFL Certification

In order to teach English abroad, the TEFL Certification is something most schools/employers look for when hiring.  I chose the TEFL Institute, because they had a class on the north side of the city of Chicago(i live in the suburbs) and was only a month long.  They also have classes in New York and online.  I chose not to do an online class, because I would procrastinate the entire thing and I rather have face to face time, especially in a teacher/student setting. Also, while taking the class in Chicago, the 20 hours teacher observation was embedded in the class.  It was also a chance for me to move downtown with a good friend and experience living in city for more than a week or weekend.

The class size was quite small, we had 10 students in the class, usually they have around 12.  And the class was from 10am-6pm.  Now speaking with the Institute beforehand, you were not really told that it lasted to 6 pm.  The classes end at 3:30, and the 'practicum' or 'teaching observation' came next. There were three different locations for the practicum, I was at TEFL Institute for practicum so I will only tell of my experience. The other two places were at a Church of some sort and a school. One of the other places had you just observe another teacher, while the second one, was your own class for and hour and a half.

The day was split into three parts. A 3 hour class with a 15 min break somewhere in there, 30 minute lunch, followed by another 3 hour class(a different teacher) and a 15 minute break.  After the second class there was about an hour and a half period to get ready for 'teaching'.  At the Chicago location, they have free English classes for foreign students(many of them were from Copeland College).  It is an opportunity for the students to practice their English some more and for us 'teachers-to be' to get some valuable experience.  However, from the first day you were thrown to the wolves, and were expected to have some sort of plan with your students.  These 'English Classes' were shaky at best, because it was free, the students sometimes would not show up, or maybe 1 of the 5 students you were supposed to be teaching came.  The upside of this is that the students have more one on one time with the teacher; and other teachers can evaluate someone else's style of teaching because none of their students came.  The downside is that you really are not getting 'teaching classroom' experience and you are more of a tutor.  For me, at least one of my students showed up everyday, so I was unable to evaluate another teacher, but I got to meet many different people from many different places. A few of the countries that people were from, were: South Korea, Japan, Turkey, Columbia, Argentina, Bolivia, Poland, and Saudi Arabia. There may have been more, but I took the class 4 months ago and my brain is a tad bit hazy.  The students were very receptive and just enjoyed speaking English with a native speaker.  I always thought that the teaching cliche about teachers not teaching for the money, was true. However, it really is not a cliche.  Even after the first week of seeing some of your students improving, made it seem worthwhile.


Overall, I learned a lot about grammar, since I hated it as a child. Also I learned a lot about lesson planning, teaching strategies and theories.  Since I am writing this before leaving, all I can say is I hope it has prepared me enough to be a decent teacher....

Application Process

The application process for the Chile's Open Door's Program was pretty simple experience.  With a few attachments and e-mails back and forth it was completed within weeks.  You can find the program here.  The application process included transcripts from the university, photos for a visa and a photo for the host family, a copy of your passport, and a resume. It is also encouraged to have a TEFL certification, in which I recently got certified and attached that document as well. After completing the application, the next step was a phone interview.  I was expecting to be interviewed by a Chilean, however I was interviewed by a team member who was from Ohio(in Chile working).  The phone interview to me was more to see if you were a real, able person for teaching.  Basically it was for information on the program.  However, if you are expecting to take a trip of this sort, most of the information was already posted on their website.  The phone interview lasted about 45 minutes, but could have been longer or shorter depending on the questions you asked and your knowledge of the program already.  During the phone interview I was informed that I wouldn't be able to enter the program if I wanted to leave one week earlier to catch a friend's wedding.  I was also informed that they were trying to make the program for both semesters not just the first semester of the year.