I'm sitting in the airport now in Panama City ready to fly home for Christine's wedding (couldnt be more excited!), so I figured I would quickly write an update.
Work at the University has been going really well. Teachers are beginning ask for my help more now and use me in their classrooms. I have also taken on a Reading Club and a Drama Club, both of which I have two classes that alternate every other week. On average, I have about 20 first year students in each of the classes while each session is scheduled for an hour and a half. I've had one week of each class so far and it's clear that they are eager to listen to and learn from a native speaker.
My focus in Drama Club is to give the students a chance to learn English in a different way from what they may be used to in the daily classroom--from activities, games, role play, etc. that gets them moving around and simulating realistic conversations and scenarios. For the first class, I just wanted to get to know them better and give them an opportunity to speak a little bit and get them comfortable participating in the club. I had them pair up and I passed out some interview questions that I had made for them to ask their partner. I created the interview recording sheet in a way that would prompt them to figure out how to form the question and the response themselves. Some of the questions were what they liked best/least about Panama and what is today's biggest problem in the world/ideas for solutions. After they finished, I had them role play a press conference with 4 celebrities in the front, everyone getting a chance, and the rest of the class (the press) ask them questions. Interesting to hear the responses about Panama, as many cited the corruption in government and a solution (when I asked for it) being more of a focus on values and morals in the education system at an early age. I've also noticed that they respond well to songs and learning the lyrics to music seems to be an effective (and sneaky) way of getting them to both read and speak the language. Had to go with the great R. Kelly for the first one--"The World's Greatest."
For Reading, I plan on collaborating a lot with the English reading professors and go through/break down passages or stories that they are reading in class. I'm stressing reading comprehension strategies and getting in the habit of stopping often to summarize the previous paragraph(s) before going on. I also used some jokes that play on words/double meaning--I was, as expected, the only one laughing when I first showed the answers (probably would have been really entertaining for you), but these seemed to loosen up the atmosphere once they understood them too. A big thing for me here is to get these students actually interested in reading in general (not only English)...I continually have the image of the crowded beach I went to here in which not one person had a book/magazine to read. I'm hoping a little JK Rowling will provide "a little magic" as I will start reading the first Harry Potter book with them the next class.
Anyways, stories that I don't really have time to write fully about now, but are worth noting: my house is finally completely set up and the mosquito/stray dog problems seem to be done with for the most part; I got hit on by a guy who, at first I thought was just friendly when he sat at my table at a local restaurant until he asked me over to his house for dinner and whether or not I like to get intimate. (oh, and he writes romantic stories just for himself)...quickly got out of that situation; a student (female this time at least) proposed to me (politely declined); I got in a fight with a cab driver over 50 cents (you'd understand if you lived in Panama); I've also made good friends with a couple taxi drivers; I travel 45-50 minutes by bus to my university everyday when, in reality, its a 4 minute drive; everybody at my university (students and professors) are amazing; and finally, I cried not only because uconn won the championship, but because that was the worst ever basketball game ever I've ever seen ever, let alone an ncaa championship game...ever.
Friday, April 15, 2011
Saturday, April 2, 2011
Mi casa nueva, el cumpleaños, y los mosquitos!
A house I can call my own and it feels good. I found a nice 2 bed/1 bath house that the renter was willing to furnish using my rent money. A win-win...he can keep the furniture after the 9 months I'm here (rent it for more afterwards), and I can rent a furnished house for no extra charge. It's a beautiful place, and definitely got a steal. However, this guy came down here to work on it and basically built it up from scratch...aka there have been several set backs that we've had to deal with (eg. the couple of stray dogs that have a tendency to bark outside my place at night--still working out how to deal with that one though) So first of all, we obviously had to go out and buy the furniture, wait a week for it to be delivered, then spend a few days putting it all together. (meaning another week spent at the hostel)
Second, I needed to get cable/internet installed--setting things up and getting appointments here in Panama just is not as easy as in the states, with their "no-rush" lifestyle, which is something that has been a little difficult to adjust to. Another thing was how dirty the place was at first; a lot of sweeping and mopping to be done. Because of the fact that it was pretty dirty, there were quite a few bugs that had to be rid of including the tiniest, peskiest mosquitos I've ever dealt with. For about 4 consecutive nights, I went to bed only to wake up with more bug bites on me (11 on my right arm/hand, 2 on my foot, a couple on my shoulder and another 2 on my back)
Last night was a huge break-through though--I woke up at 2:45 am because of the "bzz" noise of a mosquito in my ear...at this point, after days of killing these things, I knew there was one mosquito that was enjoying me for dinner every night and had eluded my murderous attempts too many times already--I was so fed up with it that I decided I was going to turn on the lights and not go to bed until this blood-sucking devil was finished. After 20 minutes of continually spinning around, missing it in the air, searching again for this elusive creature, I spotted it resting on my bed (of course, its favorite place). I approached it like a stealthy assassin and, with images of my 17 bug bites floating in my head, swung with no mercy. And that is how it's done.
Here are some recent pictures I took of the house:
Anyways, as most of you know, my birthday was the 23rd and I was lucky enough to get to celebrate it in multiple ways here. There was an ACCESS orientation that day in which a mock lesson was carried out in front of accepted students from 2 neighboring cities. ACCESS is a program that is designed to tutor poorer students who show high potential in English. Once again, it was a pleasure to see and talk with the U.S. Ambassador, Phyllis Powers, as well as the U.S. Director of Public Relations, David Searby. One of the tutors saw on facebook that it was my birthday and got the students singing happy birthday (in very good English). After the demonstration was done for the day, I proceeded to take about 25 consecutive pictures with each of the girls in the class--felt like Justin Bieber for a minute, needed my wing man Jaden Smith to take some of the pressure off.
Later that night, I went to the fair with a couple of friends in David to the city's International Fair. The fair lasted from March 17th-27th and consisted of hundreds of seller's booths, concerts, fireworks, horse shows, discotecas and carnival rides. It was a lot of fun and was amazing to see the amount of people at this fair pretty much at all times (as well as the amount of horses in the streets).
Besides all of that, I've been searching for a volunteer place to work with and might have found one in Casa Esperanza (House of Hope). This is an organization that fights against child labor and exploitation and gives them a place to learn, grow and play like children should during the day. They told me I could potentially tutor, help with english, play with the kids, carry out activities, etc. So, I'll go this Thursday and see how it works out. Fingers crossed.
Alright, well I heard it's still snowing in some parts there in the states so I'm sorry to rub it in, but...there hasn't been a day under 90 since I've been here. Had to do it.
Take care everybody, feel free to send me updates with how you are all doing too.
 |
| Spent 12-3 am the first night putting together this bed frame--not easy |
Second, I needed to get cable/internet installed--setting things up and getting appointments here in Panama just is not as easy as in the states, with their "no-rush" lifestyle, which is something that has been a little difficult to adjust to. Another thing was how dirty the place was at first; a lot of sweeping and mopping to be done. Because of the fact that it was pretty dirty, there were quite a few bugs that had to be rid of including the tiniest, peskiest mosquitos I've ever dealt with. For about 4 consecutive nights, I went to bed only to wake up with more bug bites on me (11 on my right arm/hand, 2 on my foot, a couple on my shoulder and another 2 on my back)
Last night was a huge break-through though--I woke up at 2:45 am because of the "bzz" noise of a mosquito in my ear...at this point, after days of killing these things, I knew there was one mosquito that was enjoying me for dinner every night and had eluded my murderous attempts too many times already--I was so fed up with it that I decided I was going to turn on the lights and not go to bed until this blood-sucking devil was finished. After 20 minutes of continually spinning around, missing it in the air, searching again for this elusive creature, I spotted it resting on my bed (of course, its favorite place). I approached it like a stealthy assassin and, with images of my 17 bug bites floating in my head, swung with no mercy. And that is how it's done.
Here are some recent pictures I took of the house:
Anyways, as most of you know, my birthday was the 23rd and I was lucky enough to get to celebrate it in multiple ways here. There was an ACCESS orientation that day in which a mock lesson was carried out in front of accepted students from 2 neighboring cities. ACCESS is a program that is designed to tutor poorer students who show high potential in English. Once again, it was a pleasure to see and talk with the U.S. Ambassador, Phyllis Powers, as well as the U.S. Director of Public Relations, David Searby. One of the tutors saw on facebook that it was my birthday and got the students singing happy birthday (in very good English). After the demonstration was done for the day, I proceeded to take about 25 consecutive pictures with each of the girls in the class--felt like Justin Bieber for a minute, needed my wing man Jaden Smith to take some of the pressure off.
Later that night, I went to the fair with a couple of friends in David to the city's International Fair. The fair lasted from March 17th-27th and consisted of hundreds of seller's booths, concerts, fireworks, horse shows, discotecas and carnival rides. It was a lot of fun and was amazing to see the amount of people at this fair pretty much at all times (as well as the amount of horses in the streets).
Besides all of that, I've been searching for a volunteer place to work with and might have found one in Casa Esperanza (House of Hope). This is an organization that fights against child labor and exploitation and gives them a place to learn, grow and play like children should during the day. They told me I could potentially tutor, help with english, play with the kids, carry out activities, etc. So, I'll go this Thursday and see how it works out. Fingers crossed.
Alright, well I heard it's still snowing in some parts there in the states so I'm sorry to rub it in, but...there hasn't been a day under 90 since I've been here. Had to do it.
Take care everybody, feel free to send me updates with how you are all doing too.
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