Open Doors Program, Chile, Ingles Abre Puertas: 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.