I´m done! On to new adventures...

I am offically done with the TEFL course! Yah! Tonight is the graduation ceremony/party. I am very excited.

I have an opportunity to work here in Septemeber as a full time teacher and I am going to take it! A couple of my classmates and I found an apartment today that we all like. If all goes well we can move in within a week.

The teaching position will last for six months. I hope to take off August to travel and see Peru. I have been so occupied with the TEFL course that I have not had a chance to travel and I could definitely not leave here without seeing more of the country. Machu Pichu and the jungle are on the top of my list.

Ciao!

Un dia mas!

One more day of TEFL course! Yah! I cannot wait to be done!

After my classmates and I finish teaching we are going to have a party, make t-shirts, and go out to celebrate!

There may be some openings in September to teach here at Maximo Nivel language school. I told one of the directors I would be interested in teaching here. It is one of the best language schools in Cusco. A few other ladies from my class want to stay to teach as well.

I will let you know how things develop!

Strike = No students

Today was supposed to be my second day of practical teaching. I was all ready to go at 8 AM in my fancy teacher clothes and no one showed up. After some investigation, I found out that the students did not arrive due to a transportation strike. Some new transportation laws were passed recently by the government without consulting any of the transportation services (i.e. buses, vans, taxis, etc.). There have been protests all month over this. The protests are typically mildly successful. However, today on my second day of teaching I have witnessed one of the most successful strikes in Cusco!

I do not think the strike continues tomorrow, so hopefully I will have students. I may teach a make up class later. We´ll see. Off to class...

Weekend that is not a weekend

On Monday I begin my week of practical teaching. I will have my own class of Peruvian adult students that I meet with every day. My students will be at a pre-intermediate level of English. The practical teaching portion of the TEFL course accounts for fifty percent of my grade. I have spent all today (Saturday) working on lesson plans. I spent all last night (Friday) working on a Grammar Paper. And I will probably spend most of tomorrow (Sunday) on lesson plans as well. Thus, not much of a weekend. However, I am going out tonight with people from my class to celebrate my classmate Amanda´s birthday. We are going to meet at an Irish pub. I am looking forward to it.

Next Saturday is the TEFL Graduation party! We get free alcohol! I cannot wait!!! ;)

Long time no blog

Sorry for being MIA this past week. I came down with bronchitis a week ago, I have been putting most of my energy into getting better and attending all of my classes. Thankfully, I am doing better today. I told my teacher Natalie I was feeling better today and she said, ¨Yes, you do not look like you are going to pass out.¨ So apparently I looked pretty bad last week, but I managed to attend all my classes and get my work done.

I taught my second lesson today. The goal of this lesson was to teach a new set of vocbaulary in 20 minutes. I taught ¨cruise ship¨ vocabulary: cruise ship, cabin, deck, captain, and iceberg. To help illustrate this vocabulary, I took the class on a ¨Holiday (vacation) on the ´Titanic´ Cruise Ship.¨ The ´Titanic´ Movie/Story is well known here in Peru so I did not have to go into the story of the Titanic; they already knew it. We read a dialogue between Jack and Rose, i.e. ¨Don´t jump Rose! Take my hand!¨ Then I had them write their own dialogue between Jack and Rose, and come up to perform it. It was really funny. Some boys ended up playing Rose and had Jack say things like ¨Don´t jump Rose, you are very sexy.¨

I am preparing for my next lesson tomorrow. This lesson is about getting the students to speak.
It will consist of something like having them act out another dialogue. This time between Bart and Homer Simpson who are daring eachother to do stupid things. I love ESL. :)

1st Week

The first week of classes went really well. My teacher Natalie is fanastic. Definitely feel like I am back in school. I have reading every night and need to do observations of ESL classes in evenings. I taught my first mini-lesson to Peruvian students on Friday. It was a lot of fun. The assignment for the mini-lesson was to teach anything, but English. In other words, teach the class how to do something. So I taught them a basic hip hop dance routine. Hip-Hop music is growing in popularity here, but there are no hip-hop dance classes or anything. It was only a 20 minute lesson. I needed to teach them new vocabulary so I taught them raise the roof, pop the collar, and work it. I put together a very basic dance routine using the hip-hop moves I had learned through my gym classes in Burlingame. The students were really into the dancing and had a great time.

Once Friday was over, I was very excited for the weekend. I went out Friday night with people from my class. We went to see a local Andean rock band play called Pueblo Rebelde. I bought their CD after the show. It is a five man band and one of them plays the traditional Peruvian flute, which sounds beautiful. Then on Saturday I took some Salsa lessons and Sunday I took a trip to a town outside of Cusco called Pisac. I went with some volunteers from my house. Pisac is located on the edge of the Sacred Valley, which is the meandering valley below Manchu Pichu. Rivers run through it and there are Incan ruins there. We went to visit the HUGE outdoor market there. I bought way too many things, including a warm Alpaca sweater. There are llamas just wandering around the town there. I tried to take some pictures with one, but it kept turning toward me and I was afraid it was going to spit on me! Thankfully it didn´t. I did get some awkward pictures with it. :)

Now back to class ahhh!!!