I guess I am a Teacher Now

Hi All,
I am glad to say that I have sucessful survived my first few days of teaching! It wasn´t too bad. I guess I am a teacher now because when the kids see me in the street they yell Hola Profe (Hi Teacher). Sometimes I look around and then realize they are talking to me! Its different here because the students call the teachers Profesora or Profesora instead of Miss Bland ect. So I am getting use to that.

Being in the school for the first few days, I already realize that this is going to be a challenge. All of the classrooms are full to the brim with students and some of them are standing up because their aren´t enough desks! There are anywhere between 35 to 51 students in one classroom. One of the classrooms didn´t even have a board. The limited resources make it hard to teach and learn. But we are going to work with what we have and try and make English class fun. The fact that I am from another country makes me cool! (I think...) I am working with four teachers, two that work in the morning and two that work in the afternoon. I am still trying to figure out my schedule, but I am going to try and alternate days between morning and afternoon. We are supposed to work about 16 hours a week. All the teachers at the school are really nice and they are trying to make me feel comfortable and welcome. I also start my community enlgish class on Monday. I already have 21 people interested. This is going to be a challenging year for me but I know it will be rewarding at the same time. I feel so productive in Nicaragua. I have been getting up early (5 am) to go to the gym. Then coming home and showering and going to school. Wow, only in Nicaragua lol.

In other news... I chopped off all my hair. Turns out my hair didn´t really handle this weather too well. So after six months I decided to go to the hair salon. My hair was a disaster. It was uneven and just a mess! So I told the woman to just cut it all off and start over. I am still geting use to it. Not sure that I like it. I look at myself in the mirror and I am like hmmmm who is that. But I think it was a good idea because my hair was damaged. I think it will grow back healthy now...

Thats all for now. I will hopefully get through the first week of school. I am sure I will have more stories to come

Pictures... the hair...

“Hey Now, You’re an All Star!”

For the past few days I have been attending workshops with the other English teachers before the start of the school year. I know it’s hard to believe but I have yet to start teaching in the classroom as a volunteer. School starts on Tuesday February 15th. I am pretty nervous about it. I have basically been waiting for School to start but now that it is finally here, I am nervous!

For our workshops, all the different disciplines are split into different classrooms. So I have workshops with only the English teachers. At the workshops, there are English teachers from all the surrounding schools, so I was meeting a lot of the teachers for the first time . So the first day of the workshop I was basically the most popular kid in school. Everyone wanted to know everything about me and ask me questions and the definitions of words. I would be talking to one person and then someone else across the room would interrupt and ask another question. Then another person would invite me to their house for lunch. It was pretty crazy, although I felt pretty special. It was like I was the most popular kid in school! The group of teachers that I will be working with are really nice and they all seem like they enjoy their jobs. I am looking forward to helping them in anyway that I can.

I am also in the process of starting a community English class. This will be a class for people who aren’t currently studying English but want to learn. This will be a more informal class in the evenings I think. This class will be a lot smaller than the other classes so that should be nice. I am nervous about that class too! I just want to do well! Needless to say I am going to be really busy!

Well that’s all for now, I know I will have many stories once school starts. Wish me luck!

Dale Pues

Pictures:
A photo of my wall with all my pictures
Alex and her new rocking chair ( I tried to tell her to sit like a lady!) haha