So my community English
project this semester has been a class, more like an English club really, with
a group of 7th graders. There are about 10 kids in the class, but only about 4
show up on any given day. I tried to be strict about attendance at the beginning,
but they've worn me down. Quality vs. quanity, although it's been hard to get
either, partly because I can't keep up with their energy, which constantly
manifests itself as the students bicker, typically calling each other names
like "Horse" or "Fox" (Stupid, Slut in coloquial Nica
speech). I've tried to ban this and have explained repeatedly that calling
someone fox doesn't mean anything in English anyway, but every few classes,
there's a resurgence.
The students have very short
attention spans so I've been constantly trying to think of things to do to keep
them interested. So far, taking them on a paseo (trip) to count animals,
after we learned their names in English (Teacher! Cow!! Dog!!), and teaching
them the Jellyfish song (Hands Up! And do the Jellyfish, the jellyfish, the
jellyfish fish) have been my biggest hits.
A couple weeks ago, my
attempt at entertaining the kids (with minimal planning for busy Teacher Emily)
was to review conversational phrases we learned at school ("How are
you?" "How old are you, etc?"), teach them some new ones and
then have them practice by talking with random family and friends of mine via
Skype. Only 3 kids showed up for class and one left early, which made it nearly
impossible to practice by having them interview each other.
But the kids wanted to go to
the cyber cafe anyway, so we went and talked to 6 different people. It was
really interesting to see the different ways people responded to English
language learners with a very low level.
Unlike me, they didn't really dumb things down as much, which had
interesting results. My sister Audrey for example is basically too much of a
smarty pants to be allowed to talk to ESL learners. Too many high frequency
words come out of your mouth, dear sister. However, it was good for the kids to
practice the essential skill of piecing together what someone is saying from
only catching one essential word.
Conversely, it was just as
interesting to see how the kids interacted with other native speakers. While
they kept getting really nervous, forgetting what they learned and breaking
into high pitched laughter, they did finally get the hang of certain phrases,
such as "Nice to meet you," the social context of which I think had
previously been confusing. It was great for them to see that they could (sort
of) communicate just by giving it a try. One barrier to language learning in
Nicaragua (and the majority of places in the world according to a lot of ESL
literature) is that the culture often values perfectionism, and students feel
ashamed to just try something out.
Things were going reasonably
well until my sister Audrey answered "What is your favorite animal?"
with "Hedgehog" and I
translated the word as "errizo" instead of "erizo." For
some entirely mysterious reason, they completely lost it. Because of the hedgehog
incident, they were still laughing hysterically and (hopefully) inadvertantly
creeped on a male friend of mine by asking him "What is your number?"
without saying anything else first. I think they were trying to ask "What
is your name?" Things continued to devolve from there to the point where
they just kept asking me to pronounce hedgehog over and over in Spanish and I
decided it was time to go home.
The next week, we had
slightly better class attendance (5!) and we practiced the question phrases
again. This time, my counterpart Xiomara happened to be in town and so I decided
it would be better for the students, mostly girls, to go talk with her. Xiomara
is a great role model for them because she is incredibly hard working and
intelligent, in addition to being one of
the sweetest people I've ever met. It was fun to have them
"interview" her, and vice versa. I was also able to use it as a
teaching moment; after having a quick conversation with Xiomara in English, I
told the students, "If you keep working really hard and studying, some day
you can speak English like Xiomara." It was really powerful to be able to
show them an example of a Nicaraguan woman from their own town who has achieved
so much.
We might still try a crazy exchange some other time though.
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