In Which Alysse Actually Does Something Useful

First of all, I´d like to apologize for inadvertently using the word "anywayS" over and over again in the previous posts instead of "anyway"...I´m sure many other people were equally as outraged as my Mom (love you!) and I´m sorry for any offense I caused.

Anyways, so I started teaching this week. Well "teaching" is a stretch, it´s more like "assisting" right now. I leave for Leon next Saturday, and until then I´m helping Lise teach her classes. She teaches university students three days a week (a beginner class and an intermediate class) and university teachers two days a week. She´s a great teacher, lots of fun and very energetic. She acts stuff out a lot and uses a "talking stick" to make everyone participate...except in this case it´s a "talking stuffed animal cat", which of course is way more fun. Mostly I write stuff on the board, lend my stellar acting skills to mime words, and translate for people who don´t understand something in English. Translate? Well I try.

I´ll admit I was a little bummed when I found out that I would be teaching english in Leon. I´ve always had this strange notion that the idea of teaching english to people in developing countries is just a plot for America to slowly take over the world.(I´m just kidding, for any US government officials who are reading this...sort of). But all the kids and teachers had to fill out a form before entering class, standard questions about where their speaking and reading levels were at, and why they wanted to take the class and what they hoped to get out of it. I have to say 100% of the answers were NOT related whatsoever to the US. Most of the kids talked about wanting a better job, a better life. Wanting to be able to take part or work in international business, or tourism (to be able to display the pride they have for their country). English is such an expensive language to learn here. Most people who study it, have to forgo having a job in order to study (because most of the jobs around here require extreme full time)...which a lot of people don´t have the opportunity to do. So everyone is SO appreciative of the time Lise is giving to them. I think if I ever profusely thanked any of my teachers at the start of every class for the gift of her time and energy and love, they would keel over from shock. It´s really great to hear how excited they are to learn, and how hopeful they are what doors English can open for them in future careers or life in general.

Also, I never thought about how hard it is to learn english. I´m/He´s /She´s/Wouldn´t/´Cause. A teacher in one of the classes told me she said "focus" wrong one time (use your imagination) and since then she stopped speaking english because she was afraid of saying something else wrong. She said she never talks about the "beach" (add a T in there somewhere and you´ll get it), instead she´ll talk about the sea or the ocean.