Learning Experience

I thought I knew how to teach but being here in South America has opened my eyes to a learning experience I would never have encountered had I not come here.

Each day I go to school and am taken back by the way the pupils handle the English Language so comfortably. Yet I struggle to put two words together in Spanish.

When I am out, no matter what I want to do, be it take a taxi or buy a cake I have a severe difficulty in both understanding and making myself understood, and this made me think back to some of the pupils I had taught in UK and how they are in the same boat. They don't need to speak Spanish but they are experiencing the same difficulties I am, in trying to understand something that is in truth alien to them.
This might be self inflicted, or circumstances but either way I can now empathise perfectly with their feelings of frustration, anger and the moments when you say to yourself why am I bothering.

I don't pretend to know the answer other than application and hard work in my case, but it has shown me how I didn't really know how to teach until I discovered this simple fact. If you don't understand what to do you are lost before you start. Now some of you may think this is blatantly obvious but it really has opened my eyes and has forced me to reconsider all my teaching strategies no matter how good I thought or think they are.

Now this brings me to an interesting side point. In the department I work in there is myself (English with 4 words of Spanish) Nelson our Technician ( Spanish with 4 words of English) and Diana the other teacher (Fluent in English and Spanish)So up to now we have had to wait for Diana to translate or if I wanted Nelson to do something it would result in confused looks and mounting frustrations. Until Yesterday. Yesterday they connected me to the internet in the office, and after a particularly frustrating 30 minutes with Nelson as we both tried to make the other understand what we were trying to do. I logged onto "babelfish". Now for those who don't know a babelfish fits into your ear and acts as a universal language translator, well it does if you have read or watched Douglas Adams excellent "Hitch Hikers Guide to the Galaxy". Thankfully in the real world you only need to go to their website to translate a paragraph of text you can type in, into any of about 40 languages and Spanish to English, and English to Spanish are two of them.

Instantly Nelson and I could communicate without dragging Diana away from her class. We were so pleased with ourselves we were dancing around the office laughing and smiling as if we had just won the lottery. Its amazing what a few simple words can do to make your day better. Its not perfect but it is a huge step forward.
Ciao Amigo's hasta luego.