What I have
learned so far in my voluntary experience here in Morazan, El Salvador, is that
here as well the children do love bingo. I started
teaching English in a little local school already some weeks ago with an idea that playing games,
activating the children is the right way to start teaching a new language. I
might have been right. One day we started to practice the English way to
pronunciate the alphabets and, in order to do that, we played some bingo. Now,
if only the children would decide by themselves, playing bingo would be pretty
much all we would do in the English lessons.
I have been
a volunteer in Proyecto Consciente for more than a month now, and thought that
now it would be about time to start the blog Lilo (a worker in the Proyecto and a friend)
mentioned me about. So I came here in the beginning of the year. To work in
Proyecto Consciente, an organization based in a city called San Francisco
Gotera. I wanted to teach, and to learn. This project caught my attention
because it seemed that it wants to educate in a way they still don’t educate
too much these days. This project works for critical and creative education.
How I understand it by now, it is this kind of education where the direction is
shown to the participants to look at, not given the information to swallow as
whole. (Here some information about the project: http://asociacionconsciente.blogspot.com/)
So what I
have been up to here so far? I have participated in education events with the
local youngters. We discussed about topics such as how to work in a group as a
member and as a facilitator. Also we have discussed a lot about gender, and how
we see the way the society sometimes perceives gender. As we are in this
Proyecto Consciente, the education is made in a critical and creative manner.
In practice that means that had to think. Had to talk as well. Maybe that’s why
think I learned quite a bit, and I can even say that we had a lot of fun as
well.
This is one of the moments in the trainings when you had think less. |
That’s how
Proyecto Consciente wants to make a difference. By showing a direction that
people can look at in order to understand how much they know and understand
already. Communication plays a big part when learning this way. That’s why if
you consider coming here as a volunteer, I encourage you to try to remove the
possible barriers you have and encourage yourself to share your thoughts. Also
games are important. I have had the opportunity to act as a facilitator of some
events. In these situations group games might come in handy. The coming weekend
we are another educational event, and I am happy to have a couple ideas of
group games already.
And then
about the bingo. As an international volunteer here, I am given quite a bit of
freedom to plan my own projects. So far I have taught (mainly) English in one
local school. What warms my heart is that the children greet me in the
morning in plain English already. “Good morning”, they say. I wonder if they
still remember “good afternoon”, which might be harder to remember.
I encourage
you to come here teaching English to the local children. But when it comes to
the language, don’t expect too high results in a few months. My grand goal
right now is that the children are able to answer when I ask them “how are
you”, instead of repeating my question as an answer. These things take some
time, and a lot of practise. Hopefully they have done their homework for Friday. But anyway we have
had fun in the classes, which I see just as important as the English they
learn. Sometimes we have even had fun in English. This, again, owns a lot to
the games.
Playing a game with a ball. Look how much fun we have! If I remember right this was a game where everyone just told how they feel this morning and why. For now, we do this game in Spanish ;) |
The kids just can´t wait for the game to start, believe me. Just have to explain the rules first. |
This is the
first week I will work from Monday to Friday, since I started in another school
as well. Mostly, as told, I teach English. The exception is Wednesday, when I
have a class of art with the fourth graders. However, the teachers and students
as well seem to have a lot of enthusiasm about English. Yesterday the teacher
of the fourth graders even seemed a little taken aback about my plans to have
art lessons instead of English lessons. Hopefully I will get her, and
especially the children, excited about my art classes as well. Maybe I will try
art classes in English.
One little piece of the nature of El Salvador. There are these little hidden rivers with these little river ponds. And if you pay attention you can also see the little waterfall. |