Thursday, December 5, 2013

Let's Start Talking

It is done.  Done-zo!  I cannot believe it.  What will I do now?  I have just completed my eighth and final conversation club.

What is a conversation club you ask?  Well, a conversation is a group that gets foreign language learners speaking in their second language. While conversation clubs can take different forms, the ones I facilitated were a five day credited course (meaning: the country's Ministry of Education provided the teachers who successfully completed the course with a small raise) spread out over five weeks.  The conversation club included fun activities to get participants talking in the morning and then mini workshops in the afternoon about teaching strategies.

The participants were teachers from our region.  We separated them according to what grades they taught.  I had four groups of primary teachers and four groups of secondary teachers. The groups were mixed speaking levels though.


The mixed speaking levels allowed for the participants to lead the discussions and activities.  My goal as facilitator was to provide the activities, encourage speaking, and answer any questions they had.  It was wonderful to see the participants stepping up and leading the activities and discussions.  However, with mixed speaking level groups there was the problem of the higher level speakers dominating the conversations.  While that did happen sometimes, I tried to combat the problem by giving specific speaking roles to participants, requiring a certain amount of times to talk each day, and asking the quieter ones to lead (after they ensured me they understood what is needed to be done).  I tried to never put the participants on the spot.  I would write and say questions, instructions, etc. then allow time from participants to discuss their responses with their partners or write them down.  I wanted to build the participants confidence and teach them strategies for doing the same in their classroom.

The afternoons were focused on teaching strategies.  That included lesson planning backwards, classroom management, classroom procedures, activity development, and pronunciation.  Again, as the facilitator I did not want to dominate this time.  The mini workshops were a discussion based format to encourage sharing strategies and tips with their fellow teachers.





The conversation clubs, along with the Spelling Bee (Part 123) were my babies.  I dedicated most of past 1 1/2 years to conversation club and Spelling Bee.

With these clubs, I was able to see HUGE improvements in some of my teachers.  I had a handful of teachers who were too nervous to talk the first days and by the end of the course was volunteering to led activities or dominating the conversation (I had to ask one of these teachers to let some of the other participants talk).  I enjoyed getting to know the 100ish teachers through this course.  I have made some friends for life.

These courses brought together teachers to share ideas, tips, and practice English who normally don't have this opportunity.  I would deem these 8 conversation clubs a success.  





The Hubs and I are in the last few months of our service.  I wanted to document my projects so I can show people what I did during my time in Peace Corps.  As we wrap up our service, there will be a few more posts about what we have done, plan to do, and just general things about our host country and service.


Friday, November 8, 2013

S-P-E-L-L-I-N-G Bee Part 3


How can I describe the Interregional Spelling Bee? 
With a smile spreading over my face as I over hear a 9th grader teaching a 6th grader how to use one of the spelling words in a complete sentence. 
With tears welling up as I see the three elementary students from Santa Cruz in the top 3 places in their age division.
With seeing Peace Corps fading out the Spelling Bee picture, knowing that Ticos will step up and lead the spelling bee in years to come.
With hugs and words of encouragement from parents and teachers to students who didn’t do as well as they wanted
With applause and every “You are correct”
With Santa Cruz participants holding the four of the top 9 places
With accepting their loss with grace
With accepting their win with even bigger grace
With students learning 600 English words to reach this point
With the thought of business owners and employees judging and announcing the bee next year
With smiles
With high fives
With conversations in English with all my students
With last minute studying sessions
With new friendships formed
With laughter about Guanacastecos getting car sick in the mountains
With talk of next year’s competition
To put it into one word the 1st Interregional Spelling bee was a SUCCESS.  So many people invested in this project that only two years ago was a dream.  Students, parents, teachers, administrative staff, and volunteers worked many hours to make this the success that it was. 
This project started last year in a handful of schools that had volunteers in them.  This year it spread to over 50 schools and hundreds of students.
The trip to Los Santos was many students first time out of their town.  It exposed students to students from other areas.  This built friendships that otherwise wouldn’t have happened with students, parents, and teachers.
We got spoiled.  Grants and donations made the spelling bee free to all the participating students and one of their teachers. 
The day before the event we traveled to Los Santos to be greeted with dinner and some artistic presentations and stayed the night in nice hotels. 
The next day we jumped right in with the top three elementary kids needing to go to the secret word list.  Then the junior high group had a showdown between three students (two of them from Santa Cruz) for third place. And then the competition ended with the high school group demonstrating their firm grasp on the English language.
Next year will be even bigger and greater, and I am sad I will be missing it.  But so proud to be part of it this year!    



























Friday, September 27, 2013

Checking things off my (bucket) list

The past week and a half, the Hubs and I traveled to Colombia and Peru to check things off the bucket list.  It has been a dream of mine to visit Machu Picchu.

A few months, year ago, I wrote a post here about my bucket list.  It is an ever evolving list.

Here are pictures from my first official bucket list adventure.

First stop: the Salt Cathedral 

While most of our trip will be high above sea level, today we were below the earth

Just doing some taste testing 

Plain salt...blah

Colombians like their hot chocolate with cheese 

the Hubs studying the guide book (a typical view when we stopped) 

3,200 meters above sea level 

The Hubs and Bogota's 8 million residents 


My cuy (guina pig) 



the Hubs and his alpaca 



The train ride to Agua Calientes (the town to stay in before going to Machu Picchu)

We are here!  





We hiked Wayna Picchu to look down on Machu Picchu



Scared of heights while at the tip top of the mountain 

He's not scared

That bald patch is Machu Picchu as seen from Wayna Picchu 

Cusco

Inca Cola is more popular than Coke 


The famous 12 sided rock in a supporting wall 



Peruvian ceviche 

We ended the trip with the Hubs eating his favorite candy to start feeling better