5th Entry – June 17, 2012 – Teaching and
Graduation
The last seven days have been busy as usual. This week was teaching week for the TEFLers
(as we are called sometimes; students in training for their Teaching English as
a Foreign Language certificate). We
still had class in the mornings but just for three hours. The class I taught was from 7-8pm and was
alto basico (High Basic). My students
ranged in age from around 18 – 30 (I think), and the students were in their 5th
month of learning English. I had 14
students on the roster, but I never had all of them in class. As a matter of fact, two of the students
didn’t show up until Friday. We had
specified topics we had to teach during the week, but how we actually went
about teaching those topics was up to us.
Some of the other TEFLers had more material than others to teach. Luckily, I didn’t have to cover too much
information. On Monday my class learned
how to talk about a schedule or routine.
For example, we talked a lot about what they did every morning. We also learned some useful frequency adverbs
like always, usually, sometimes, and never.
On Tuesday we studied “what do” questions. Questions like, “What do you do?”, “What does
he play?”, “What time does class start?”, etc.
Wednesday we covered comparatives like:
better, taller, older, more beautiful, etc. The students had a good time with the
comparatives. I started the class by
holding up a picture of two very different looking people with a few pieces of
information below each picture. The
students then compared the two pictures using the information I provided. Thursday we talked about superlatives
like: tallest, most handsome, richest,
heaviest, etc. Again it was a fun
class. I got them using some
comparatives and superlatives to talk about soccer players. Finally on Friday, we did a Jeopardy review
game. I had a total of 16 regular
questions and 2 bonus questions. The 16
questions ranged from 100 to 400 points and were arranged into 4
categories: “What Do” questions,
Comparatives, Superlatives, and Vocabulary.
The two bonus questions were 500 points each. The students did very well in the game. There was only one incorrect answer, and the
students were going for the hardest questions to get the most points. My teacher said that they really understood
what we had covered during the week to have only missed one question. Teaching a class made me very nervous,
especially the first class. Luckily, my
first class went pretty well which helped the students see me as an established
teacher rather than a first-timer. The
days were very long because I had to get to school in the morning for class,
and I stayed at school until my class was over at night. I spent most of the afternoon preparing for
the class that evening or working on other assignments. I’m really glad the class is over, and it
went well. Although the TEFL course took
much more time than I had expected, I ended up having a great time during the
course. We had a great group of people
taking the class, and I’ll miss them all.
On Thursday after class, we all planned to go out to
eat as a sort of TEFL farewell. We got
out of class at about 1pm and walked to a nearby restaurant. On the way over, I moved my wallet and camera
from my pants pockets to two separate zipper pockets in my jacket. We got to the restaurant at about
1:10ish. We went to the upstairs section
of the restaurant, pulled some tables together, and sat down. I put my jacket on the back of my chair. There was not a table behind me but there was
enough space for the waiter to walk around.
There was a table kind of diagonal from ours. A few minutes after we sat down, someone
asked if we could take some pictures. I
reached back to get my camera and the zipper pocket was open. I checked the other pocket, and the pocket
that held my wallet was also open. My
camera and wallet had been stolen. Two
of the other students came back to school with me to make sure I hadn’t just
forgotten the items in my backpack, but I didn’t leave them at school. We went to the international office at our
school, and they helped me to get ahold of my bank so I could cancel my debit
card which was in my wallet. I got ahold
of my bank at about 1:25. The thieves
had already tried to get money at an ATM unsuccessfully 4 times by 1:23. I then went to the tourist police station
with an employee from the school so we could file a report. I had to spend a good chunk of time there
answering questions and signing papers.
In the meantime, the girl who came with me went with another officer to
the restaurant to talk to the owner. The
owner said that one table came in around the same time as us, sat upstairs, but
then left without ordering any food. We
are pretty sure they must have spotted me moving the items from my pants to my
jacket and followed us to the restaurant.
We have no idea how it happened though because we were sitting
relatively close to the wall, 7 people were at our table, and the items were
zipped in separate pockets. No one saw
anything suspicious. We were all a
little rattled because it happened so quickly and without anyone noticing. Finally after signing some final papers that
had quotes of things I had said in Spanish that I didn’t actually say at all,
we went to the ATM where the thieves had tried to use my debit card. The ATM was located inside a pharmacy. Unbelievably, there were no cameras which I
thought was rather strange. In my mind, all
pharmacies have video surveillance and so do all ATMs….. how could an ATM
inside a pharmacy not have any kind of video.
We’ve talked about it since, and this was obviously not the first time
the thieves had stolen from tourists.
They followed us into a restaurant, stole my items without anyone
noticing and in a rather difficult location, and knew exactly which ATM to
use. After all of that, the police
officer asked me to pay the fee associated with filing a police report. I thought that was terrible. I got robbed and then I had to pay. I had to borrow money from someone because I
obviously had none, my wallet had just been stolen. I tried to explain that to the officer…. But
it wasn’t working. Also, going to and
from the restaurant and then to the ATM, we used taxies which we paid for. After we were done with the police, I went
home to make sure I didn’t have any other credit cards in my wallet that I had
forgotten about. When I got to the
house, my bedroom was locked and there was no toilet paper. My host parents weren’t there, but they
didn’t expect me home until about 8:30 after teaching my class. They often lock the doors inside the house
when they go out, but it really timed out poorly for me that day. The lack of toilet paper didn’t help the
situation either. Anyway, I don’t expect
to see any of my stuff again which really sucks because I have 4 more weeks of
travel coming up.
Last night there was a graduation style party for
the TEFL students. Many of the other
students were also invited. It was a lot
of fun. And more importantly, everyone
passed the course J
I am now in the airport in Lima, Peru on my way to Asuncion,
Paraguay. I’m going to be on a super
budget at least until I meet my sister in Brazil in about 8 days. My Paraguayan friends have assured me I’ll be
fine there without spending much. I hope
they are right.
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