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)