English Teacher to Auxiliar

Here's me with the adorable kids in Kindergarten (which has an auxiliar assistant helping me.) They got their colors down; I think they might even know them better than the older grades!



Here's a picture of one of my last classes as the official English Teacher. (The last days the teacher stayed in the class with me- which made it much better.)

Life is good here in Tupac. I am now an auxiliar (a teacher’s assistant) in the Class 3C, with Profesora Diana and I love it. I feel as if I can be much more effective in actually helping the students with their work and building more of a connection with each one of them in the class than I was at being by myself in the class as an English teacher in the class; trying to get them to obey, pay attention and listen to me for all the grades in primary. The last two weeks were really beginning to take a toll on me- and I always went to sleep with anxiety about my classes the next day; I had nightmares of kids tearing the classroom apart and everything going up in chaos (Wait, that did happen. Haha).

Helping out in 3C is really fun. It's a good age- they're old enough so that most of them have a longer attention span and they can learn material that's more challenging. Right now, I'm acting as a kind of tutor and helping them with their homework, encouraging them to keep working and chatting with them a bit.

The community here in Chorillos is really lovely. More than a few times I've had parents come up to me (not only just outside the school, but on the streets and in the market) and ask me why I wasn't teaching English anymore. They tell me how their child was talking about "La Chinita" who was the English teacher and "Muy buena." I think students are a bit dissapointed I'm not their teacher (since I'm only in one class now). But I'm really touched that they liked me enough to tell their parents about me- and that there parents are so involved in their child's education that they ask questions.

There is officially a new English teacher, Ivon, who will teach the same classes I was going to teach, Kindergarten through third grade. She is planning to enroll in university to get a certificate to teach English. Last week, she came to the house and we were chatting in English/Spanish because she wants to practice her English conversational skills. So now I have two English students, Louis Enrique and Ivon. So many people here want to learn English, it seems. I think I will just have to limit my time because it’s crazy how tired I get from speaking English for more than two hours). So hopefully I will get to help Ivon in her English classes because that would be fun too! I am also looking forward to starting some after school clubs once I settle into Fe y Alegria more- such as an English conversational one for the older students, a healthy cooking class or Creative Writing!