Book Does Not Sound Like School

"En qué parte de tu país viven los Estadounidenses?"
--Ximena (my host mom)

I stood my ground, puffed out my chest, and got a closet...for a classroom.

To be fair, there are windows. There is a white board on the wall, and enough room for at most twenty chairs crammed close together, and the electrical outlets don't work--but it's mine. I control when the students enter, and when the leave. The small space actually makes it easier to keep them in line too (not that discipline is really an issue at my Liceo), one stern snap of my fingers and they shut up. It's funny to watch too, because Chilean students (for whatever inexplicable reason) are not expected to be quiet, or raise their hands. The teachers here just let them talk to each other, get up and move around, listen to their mp3 players, eat in class, etc. As I said, things aren't as bad at my school as I understand they are in other places, but it will take a while to adjust my students to "sit still, speak when spoken to" approach to classroom behaviour that I was raised on and have come to expect. Oh, and PDA is out of control, and perfectly acceptable in Chilean culture.

I have decided, at least for now, to remain at Liceo Lucho (as the kids call it.) The concession of a teaching space helped, but my decision was really made by the students. They seem to genuinely appreach my being here, and there are more then a handful that are really eager for the opportunity to learn English from a Gringo. I actually had a student (who speaks impeccable English with a very strong British accent) sit me down and confess that he had read my blog. He said that even though the teachers here are very prideful (and apparently they have that reputation throughout Calama at other schools as well) I should stay for the students. I couldn't argue with that logic.

I began actually teaching on Thursday, in my closet, and I didn't actually have anything prepared as my planning meeting with the three English teachers was not scheduled to take place until that day at lunch. Things went well though, and it's not hard to come up with a lesson quickly when the majority of your students almost no English. My objective with the third level students (equivalent to Juniors) is simply to get them speaking in English, and listening to native speech. The older students I work on pronunciation, and elocution (which is actually the most fun for me, oddly enough). In one class, just to have some fun, I showed them the part of this clip from the film Hot Rod in which Rod introduces himself and his crew to Isla Fischer's character:

I got some of them to say "Hi my name is [name] and I like to party." Mostly though it would come out, "Hi my name is [name] and I like to parties" or "I like to go to party."

Before I had started teaching, I was observing, and trying to get a feel for the students and where they were as far as speaking ability (most aren't very far along at all.) The highlight of my observation period was when there was a sudden commotion and I turned to see the students responding to the discovery of one of the dreaded Arana de Rincon spiders skittering across the floor. In a flash the kids calmly went to action, pushing back desks to isolate the intruder and then hemming it in (the spiders are known for their speed and evasion skills) so that one of the boys could stomp it into paste. Then, they re-situated themselves and return their attention to the lesson as though nothing out of the ordinary had occurred. The whole episode happened with such speed and fluidity that I can only assume these kids are used to dealing with the poisonous foe.

Part of my observation period included introducing myself to each class and allowing them to ask me question, which was generally tedious with me repeated answering the same stock questions ("Do you have a pet? Where do you live? Do you practice a sport?"). However, there were two back to back classes that blew me away with such absurd questions as "Do you know Hollywood?", "Do you like Ricky Martin?", "Do you feel alone?", and so forth. One very insightful youth asked me how I felt about the looting that took place following the major earthquake in the south. Another popular question that never ceases to elicit interesting reaction is, "Do you like Chilean Women?" The girls of course expect me to say that I love Chilean women because they are very beautiful (awwwwwwwww!) and the boys are looking for me to make some rude or lewd remark. I normally just tell them women are women. Though in truth, the Chilean women are very beautiful (when you find them in Calama) and they really stand out with the high amount of Bolivian, Peruvian, and Colombian immigrants. Bolivian and Peruvian women especially do not age well, I have noticed.

Speaking of immigrants, my host family is probably what you could call "casually racists" according to the generally accepted attitudes of Chilean superiority (they consider themselves white). This leads to hilarious conversations about sleepy Mexicans, the Chinese always eating dog, and questions that translate basically to "where in the United States do all the white people live?" Also, according to my host mother, all Colombians are black.