Jueves (Thursday), Viernes (Friday) and Victor, and Sabado (Saturday)

On Thursday I was feeling a bit discouraged with my classes because I felt like they were getting bored with what we had been doing.  They were still following along, but my younger class seemed like they were either daydreaming or talking to classmates.  They were getting bored of the same old games and I was trying to figure out how to fill the time.  My older class looked like they were falling asleep.  I had put them into groups, mixing the guys in with the girls since the guys seem to know more than the girls for some reason.  It sort of worked, but when we had them present in front of the class, they spoke so softly and some of the other kids were talking.  I need to find some way to boost all of their confidence!

Thursday night I was so tired and was wondering how I was going to survive teaching for three months.  It's really hard to figure out what they already know, accommodate for all of the different levels in one class, and keep them all engaged.  I'm not sure when to move on from a subject either because some of them get it and some of them don't.  Plus, they have a harder time pronouncing things than writing them down.  If anyone has any tips...  :)

On Thursday afternoon, I went to the mountain school with the other volunteers.  I am planning to go there every Tuesday and Thursday when I'm not working on the website.  Those students are very frustrating to work with.  They are bright, but they act up a lot.  Students are yelling to ask if they should copy things, yelling out answers, yelling that they don't want to do it, yelling that they are done copying, and yelling that they need a pencil.  Because there is so much yelling, I found myself yelling and not having so much fun.  I had told Franci that we should do the Hokey Pokey since they were learning body parts.  She was helping in the classroom I was in since Emil was sick and had stayed home.  We told them to go outside to do the Hokey Pokey and they immediately started playing other games.  It took a good while to get them all rounded up and then I had to scream the Hokey Pokey twice.  My voice was stretched to the limit.  I told Dave I'd come back from here with lungs of steel because of the altitude, and he said either that or with lungs of a heavy smoker.  After yelling for so long, I was coughing and coughing.  The kids are great at the mountain school, but they are really wearing.  I must admit I enjoy teaching the students at Concepcion better than at the mountain school.

Thursday night and Friday morning I had a few epiphanies.  I found some books in our small library that I could use for both classes on Thursday after coming back from the mountain school.  On Friday morning, I woke up and thought of doing Simon Says with the younger students after teaching them some parts of the body.  For the older students, I wrote up some homework for the weekend.  I felt a bit more enthused to go to class.

My younger students had a little bit of trouble with the body parts and Simon Says, but it was something different and I think it helped them to remember some of the vocabulary.  I keep going over simple phrases every day, like "How are you today?" and "What day is it?"  It can get a little bit discouraging when they answer, "My name is..." or "It is January."  I know some of them are understanding and others are just guessing.  After that I read them "Go, Dog, Go."  They really liked the pictures and I think they started to understand what was going on in the story.  They were laughing and some of them asked me to please read it again.  We didn't have anymore time though and so I said I might read it next week.  I think books are a good way to go!  If anything just to hear English more.

At the beginning of the class for my older students, I wrote all the homework on the board.  They all copied it down and then I explained what they were supposed to do.  I'm hoping to see good results and hopefully Lauren and I can come up with an exam to give this week.  I think that might get them to study some more.  I had brought a book called, "I Need a Friend."  There were three copies but also two new boys in the class.  They had to share them three to a person.  We went around each person reading a page aloud.  Then we went page by page to work on the vocabulary.  I had to do a lot of acting out so that they could understand what was going on.  There are a group of three boys who like to blurt out anything that comes to mind.  A lot of times they are right, too.  They were laughing at me when I was acting out "feel sorry."  There's a page that says, "All by myself I can skin my knee, but I need a friend to feel sorry."  So I was going up to a girl and saying in Spanish, "Pobrecita, lo siento que no te sientes bien."  They were all laughing at me, but they finally understood what it meant.  We had fifteen minutes left after we finished with the book and so I quickly improvised.  Lauren and I drew a picture on the board and they had to tell us what it was in English.  Most they were shouting out in Spanish and then we were helping them with the English word.  Lauren and I were laughing so hard, mostly because of our bad drawings.  That's where Victor comes in.

Victor, a student in my older class at Concepcion.

Victor is one of the smarter students and usually knows what's going on.  He isn't afraid to try to figure out what we are saying in English and most of the time he has a good idea of how to say it in English also.  When I drew an ocean up on the board, he and the other two boys who are vocal, shouted out, "Mar!"  I kept on having to remind the class that we wanted the English word.  So then he shouts out, "Mer!"  I think that maybe Lauren and I were in a delirium since it was Friday at the end of class.  I laughed and told him, "Now you are speaking in French!"  He smiled and we had a good laugh.  Then I wrote, "Have a good weekend!!!" on the top of the board and Lauren and I sighed in relief because we had survived the first week at school.

When we caught a taxi in Concepcion, it was starting to rain pretty hard and when we got out of the taxi in Huancayo, it was sprinkling.  We have quite a few blocks to walk to get home from the Plaza Constitucion, so we started walking hurriedly.  There was thunder and it seemed to be following us.  We walked faster and faster and got home ahead of the rain.

In the afternoon I stayed at the house to have my Spanish lesson and to brush up some more on how to create a website.  I also started to look up the favorite songs of the students in my older class.  One of them is "Club Can't Handle Me."  I think it will be fun to present some of the songs and get them to learn more English vocabulary that way.  When I looked up the lyrics, though, I realized I needed to have someone translate the English for me in some parts.  :)  It may not get them to learn too much, but I think it would be a fun thing to do nearing the end of the week when they are falling asleep.

When the others came back to the house, Lauren and I went for a walk to find the other artisan market that we had gone to with Emil and Ylfa the first week.  We walked around and I bought more scarves.  They have such beautiful scarves for so cheap that I couldn't resist.  I was also looking for a sweater for my mom, but I didn't see anything that jumped out at me.  After that we rushed home to be in time for dinner.  Mari is such a good cook!  She always makes something that is so tasty.  They eat a lot of meat, potatoes and vegetables here.  In the mornings it seems she always has a different kind of porridge.

It's Saturday morning now and we are going to Ingenio, a tourist fishing town, with Mari.  It is known for its trout, although she said they also have some places to take walks and some artisan shops.  We are going to eat lunch there and she said that there are many dishes with trout, like ceviche, as well as other non-trout dishes like pachamanca.  Pachamanca is a typical Peruvian dish that is usually cooked under the ground.  Different types of meat can be used for pachamanca although I think lamb is one of them most common.  Max doesn't like fish, so I think he is going to try the pachamanca.

One day this week, Leslie, my Spanish teacher, told me that there is a karaoke bar nearby.  I've convinced the other volunteers to go out with me tonight to the karaoke bar.  They said they weren't going to sing, but it should be a good time anyway.