Now we're TESOL-ing: brace yourself for acronyms

"We teach who we are."

“When learning is central teaching becomes subordinate to it.”

MY classroom!

I have to admit...originally TESOL (Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages) was just an excuse.

I wanted to travel, more than anything. One foreign country a year, a goal unbroken since 2007. But I wanted to be slightly productive, and put a focus on improving my Spanish fluency in preparation for grad school or a career opportunity or...well, just for fluency.

Somewhere around the time when I was getting quotes in the neighborhood of $4-$5,000 (not including airfare) to sit on my butt somewhere in a latin american country learning to speak el espanol a little better, I decided that this goal was too lazy, too.

So began my destiny with TESOL.

TESOL, sometimes called TEFL or TESL, is in most cases a highly intensive, 4-week certification course that presents its successful graduates with an international certificate to work as an English teacher in a foreign country. 

As evidenced by the few students in the course with me who already have substantial experience teaching English in Quito, elsewhere in Ecuador, or Peru, not everywhere is a stickler for your certs. But it simplifies that whole VISA issue and allows you the top-notch, above-board opportunities that DO require certified teachers. (That's not to say that my colleagues here are poor teachers, quite the contrary!)

John. Basically, he's great.

Raed, who teaches after me.

My particular course, which began Monday (Happy Fourth, to me!), is offered here in central-northern Quito through a program called EIL Ecuador - the Experiment in International Living - and is SIT certified (School of International Training). The acronyms are almost as bad as the Marines ;)

SIT is a university in Vermont that focuses on...well, international training. Things like teaching or conflict resolution or politics with a cross-cultural and multi-cultural focus. Sound like I'm pumping it a little? Well, the lovely SIT IS giving me some substantial graduate credit for the TESOL course (assuming I graduate)...so consider me a grad student already! 

The days are long and the nights are homework.

There are nine of us TESOL-teachers in all, and we meet Monday - Friday, 8:30a - 6:30p (or later). We have two trainers working with us, one (Elias) a native Ecuadorian who also speaks Kichwa fluently, and the other (Shirley) is an expat from Texas who's been in Ecuador nearly forty years after meeting her husband here in the Peace Corps. Gee, sounds like someone else I know...BROTHER.

On the first day we learned, we learned, we learned. Then, we were assigned a ten-page essay to be entitled, "Learning about learning through my learning." YEAH, it's one of those.

On the second day we were already teaching...our fellow classmates. Thanks to me, four more people in this world now know how to compete in a good round of Egyptian Rat Slap (or Egyptian Rat Screw, como prefieres). If that sounds interesting to you, digame. There's money if you can beat me your first time...NO ONE beats me but the best ;)

The Teaching Game gave us practice with the lesson plan format...each lesson plan we make is four or so pages long, with several involved parts: identifying the students' learning objective and your action plans for the lesson as a teacher, questions surrounding those, a detailed breakdown of what exactly you are doing for every given minute, who are the main participants of each activity, and which learning types you are accessing. Every step of the plan has a CCQ, or checking comprehension question, that goes with it. There is also a page of your main "language points," or vocabulary, that you are utilizing in your lesson. The vocabulary is broken down in a thorough chart as to form, meaning, usage, and again - CCQ. How can you know that your students understand? My fellow teachers will know, as well as most one-time students (ahem, everybody), that when your teacher asks, everyone understand? Ninety percent of the time, nobody will say anything. 

Because they don't understand.

"Do you understand the words that are coming out of my mouth?!"

First-day photos were a little blurry, but thanks Carl!

The SIT TESOL course is really unique. I'm reading articles that are indispensable to being a teacher, making my own curriculum and lesson plans from scratch, delving into myriad resources for inspiration, and receiving constant feedback from my teaching/training team.

My favorite part? This course really focuses on students' learning, not on teaching. 

My teacher's training is streamlined to put the students, their language skills and practice, and their learning at the forefront. Instead of talking to my class in order to fill their heads with knowledge, instead of creating activities that keep them engaged, my goal here is to have them fill their own heads through their own experience with my guidance and planning.

Ok. I may have lied. 

My OTHER favorite part? I really like my students.!!

I am teaching the higher-level students in a class of ten, ranging from ninth-graders to over-the-hill (the hill being fifty) pilots and professionals. (Haha ok, sorry Mom, that was a joke -- I did mean to imply fifty. But not as a hill.

More like a mountain.

Ok, I'm stopping. Very flat-surface fifty. Some of my students are simply adults). 

Teacher observation time...

...while my students plan out their dream vacation...

...in the future and conditional forms. This group was really creative, they went to the moon on their vacation!

I just gave the first lesson of the season tonight -- and tomorrow will already be devoted to more lesson plans, because they will be due first thing Monday morning, in time for my next class Monday night! Experienced teachers will think that's nothing compared to the daily grind. But please remember, we have no curriculum. We have no plans, no book, nada...and the planning begun a day ago. :)

Oh, that's nothing, you say. You have all weekend.

Oh, sorry. Didn't you hear? ...Ecuadorian adventures begin this weekend! First overnighter: Mindo! City of famed cloud forests, butterfly gardens, canopy, tubing, and most importantly, the BEST coffee in Ecuador. Literally. It won that title.

The cherry on top? The best coffee in Ecuador does chocolate, too.

Should be a heck of a weekend :)

Thank you ALL for your love and support in reading this adventure with me. I'm so glad to have everyone along and I can't wait to keep going -- when there's nowhere to go but up, I climb!

Now we're TESOL-ing. :)