I went to Canadian House at 10 am to meet about the day’s lesson plans. It was a short meeting, no more than thirty minutes and Ryan and I met at San Sebastian afterwards. We had only one plan for the afternoon: Cuy!
Dear mom,
Do not disown me for this. It’s not like I took a fork to Cocoa or ‘Nilla or whatever they used to be called.
Yes. We did. We ate Guinea pig. Grilled guinea pig, to be more specific. It wasn’t by accident or by coercion. Ryan and I sought out a restaurant to sample this local delicacy. It’s eaten on special occasions here—much like we eat lobster in the United States. Feel free to think we’re weird, but don’t knock it until you’ve tried it. They’ve really been talking it up here. It also didn’t come cheap either (well, by Ecuador monetary standards at least)—15 bucks a C’uy. But that’s a whole meal for like $7.50 a person. And you know what? It was delicious! A little like Chicken, but saltier, juicier and with firmer meat. We actually really enjoyed the hell out of it.
We followed up our meal with ice cream at Nice Cream and then we were off to our respective English teaching establishments.
Class 1:4-5. Students ages 7 and 8 year olds.
We started with a game of charades which was only successful because the secretary was able to explain the rules to them. Unfortunately after charades she was called out the room and didn’t come back. This is where it all dissolved to mass chaos. With no ability to communicate effectively with the students, they were unable to understand the tasks that I gave them and despite my best efforts began to in sync break into the diarrhea song. There were several moments that I wanted to run clear out the door. Students milled about the room, bopping one another over the heads with their books and I was only able to reel them all back in the end with a game of hang man. This proved to be a short lived game because most of them were smart enough to figure out that with their limited vocabulary words the three letter word I put up could only either be cat or dog, and the five letter word had to be pencil. I almost stumped them with scissors, but then somebody guessed an S. The good news is that class eventually ended and it was my worse one of the day. It wouldn’t have been this painful if there was a translator.
The philosophy behind Canadian House is that students will learn by immersion if their teacher is a native English speaker. The teacher’s knowledge of Spanish is entirely secondary to their ability to speak English almost to the point that it matters nil. But, in my experience—it does matter. A lot. You can only teach so much without using Spanish and if you don’t know the language—you’re kind of screwed. After the class with the seven and eight year olds, I am pretty certain that I don’t agree with Canadians House’s philosophy or policy. They need teachers way more proficient in Spanish than I am—at least for the very little kids. To be fair, my presence in the room was more to fill an immediate pressing need and perhaps this is an unusual case.
Class 2: 5-6 pm. Ages 11, 12, 13.
This class went really well. We focused more on plural nouns, went over the assignment I had given them at the end of last class and then played a game where the class was divided into two teams and had a list of nouns. The team that finished with the most correct plural versions of the nouns won. This was pretty successful and it was gratifying to see them fully engaged.
Class 3: 6-7 pm. Teenagers.
We got through half of the speaking portion of the exam where they had to have a brief conversation with me in English. It was not much different than yesterday with the adults—about equally painful for both parties with the rare and very impressive exception.
Class 4: 7-9 pm. Adults.
I put up a large family tree on the board with extensive relations from father, son, husband and wife to nephew and niece, father in law (etc…) to great aunt and great uncle. We focused on the difference between contractions and possessives. It might seem tedious to spend about two hours asking a class of adults “How is Tina related to Tim?” But they were very focused and intent on grasping all the possible connections. In the end, I had them all construct their own family trees and label their family members in relation to themselves. Tomorrow we will go over careers and they will present their family trees to me while explaining what job each family member has.
First class excluded, I had a pretty awesome day as a teacher. The most satisfying part is that most of the students seemed very excited about the next class. I didn’t tell them that it will be my last one. I came here to write and learn Spanish and I would like to focus on that when I return from Cuenca and Machala on Monday.
Afterwards, Ryan and I met up at our favorite café, Sendero—where there was an American band playing. Even though half the songs were Christian rock songs, they did throw in a few Beatles numbers and “Go Johnny Go Go Go.” While there I had a ground beef quesadilla and a cookie with limonade. This former proved to be a sordid sordid mistake.
Interesting fact about limonade. There are no limes or lemons in this country. At least, I haven’t seen any. There are limons which is a mix between the two of them.
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