English classes

I have been teaching English to 9th graders here. Because it is so hard to get middle schools up and functioning (although this is one of the projects I’m working on, to get one in my town) out in the small towns in the mountains, the Honduran government started a program a few years back called ¨Maestro en Casa,¨ meaning in-home teacher. Ideally, the students go to class for 4 hours every Saturday, and during the week, listen to the radio for the rest of their classes. However, that is not how it usually works, especially because every teacher has a different pace, and is almost never in sync with what they are teaching on the radio. Each month is also split up by subject, so one month they will be taught math the entire time. The next month science, the next English and so on. The thing that makes this program function so easily is that the teachers are all volunteers, because they only come on Saturdays. Therefore, the government doesn’t really have to pay much for the program, and the teachers don’t have to come every day (usually teachers live in the city and walk into town every day to teach), which are usually the problems that arise with putting a school in such small towns.

So right when I got into my town, I had to finish up teaching the ninth graders, who had previously been taught by the volunteer before me. He had asked to extend a month so he could finish up teaching the class, but was rejected (no comment will be made on this subject…). So, luckily I was ready and willing to jump in and take his place for the month of October. Also, lucky for me, the subject of the month was English. How easy! Or so I thought.

After reading over the text for the first time, I quickly realized that I did not know any of the verb forms or rules of English. I only speak the language, I don’t study it! It was actually quite a bit harder than I had thought, and it took me a couple times teaching it before I really caught on. To think, if it took me that long, one who speaks the language fluently, I can’t imagine how hard it was for my students!

I also originally wanted to start teaching the class primarily in English, so they could at least begin to listen and understand the language better. But for the first class, I just got flustered and completely forgot to speak mostly English, and went for Spanish (odd, since one would think being nervous I would choose my native language). I also had originally hoped that the class would participate more, but the minute I called on someone to answer a question, they froze and refused to say a word. They were terrified to speak the language. At first I was a little frustrated by this fact, but then I quickly remembered the days of my high school Spanish class. My favorite Spanish teacher ever had also asked us at the beginning to speak Spanish in front of the whole class, and I remember being terrified. I resorted to staying silent for most of the class. Although she had good intentions, it simply didn’t work for many of us. Remembering that, I decided to give up my dreams of making them fluent in a month, and stuck to lecturing them in my broken Spanish and asking them to repeat the verbs all together (at least I got some participation in there).

I was excited by how well they were doing on their quizzes, and thought they were actually learning something….until the time came for the test. About a third failed, and of those who didn’t perhaps only 3 or 4 got A’s. I was devastated. I had wanted to at least help them to understand the language a little better, or get them excited about learning it. And they had learned some things. But I think mainly when it came time to put all the verb forms that we had learned together, they just got confused. I realized also that some just didn’t care. And those who did care, only cared about passing because that’s all you really need in the public schools here. Grades don’t really matter.

I wish I could say I made a difference in these kids lives, and made some of them excited to learn English, and helped them to realize how much knowing another language can help you get ahead. But sadly, I believe I did none of that. Obviously this is not a story of failure. It’s reality, that’s all. And definitely a learning experience. I really enjoyed teaching, and hope to teach English to all the grades next year. Hopefully, I’ll do better than I did this time.