While my primary purpose here in Resistencia is teaching English at San Fernando Rey, I realized today that I have written little to nothing yet about the teacher training institute, its students or my responsibilities in the classroom since I started working nearly a month ago. Today, this post shall aim to fill part of this hole with some of what I have learned thus far interacting with the students and instructors of San Fernando's English teacher training program.
San Fernando Rey houses several teacher training programs, including courses of study for those who want to teach: mathematics, individuals with disabilities, deaf individuals, and English. The English teacher training program in which I work has nearly 400 students (I'm learning names little by little but I think it might be a minor miracle if I could actually learn everyone's name in the program...). The students are divided into 5 levels; the first of these is propedeútico, the level that precedes year one of "official" studies. At this level students have only English language and grammar classes to improve their language skills to the level required for official entry into the program. Then, students are distinguished in 4 groups according to their year of study in the program. Looking holistically at the program, classes include: Language & Grammar, Phonetics, Education in Argentine Society, the science of learning, Linguistics, Culture of English-speaking societies, Pedagogy of teaching a foreign language, theory and practice of curriculum development, Linguistic Textual Analysis, Cultural Diversity and integrative workshops that combine elements of several classes for comprehensive language practice. My apologies if the class listings are a drag to read; my point in including them is only to to emphasize that once matriculated into the program, students are locked into taking the courses assigned to their specific year. Unlike my own education at Denison, students cannot choose from among a few dozen disciplines, a couple hundred professors, and even more classes in each semester's schedule. No, they are locked into the classes, the professors, and the hours assigned to them according to their year in the program, which at times I have discovered can be less than favorable. A product of Denison's liberal arts learning philosophy, my wheels are constantly turning regarding the advantages and disadvantages of this training program in which I am working. More thoughts soon on those pro's and con's relative to the context of these students' learning environment and the conditions in which they will eventually work...
The school day at San Fernando begins at 7:30 am and ends at 1:00 pm for all students on most days. Thankfully I have the freedom to arrange my schedule in a way that 9:00 am is the earliest that I arrive on any given day at the institute. :-) Students basically have classes the full duration of these 4 1/2 hours (with some short breaks throughout, of course), but also usually have a 40-80 minute scheduled break once or twice a week. During these respites for students we encounter the first of my primary classroom responsibilities. I hold fairly informal "conversation hours" in which I independently plan and execute some sort of lesson/activities or lead a discussion on a topic of cultural relevance. So far, these lessons/discussions have included American idioms, leisure activities, Osama bin Laden's assassination, Resistencia's colectivo system and writing anecdotes, etc. A major benefit to my job is that I am not assigned with the task of assigning grades to any student. Thus, when it comes to participation in my conversation hours, I think students generally find themselves a bit more at ease to participate and less apprehensive about the consequences if they say/present something wrong. Now, if I can just alleviate their nervous nature regarding participation in front of their classmates; I don't know how many times I've heard since starting my work that, "I'm shy in class because all my classmates speak/write/communicate better than me." These fears are nearly always unfounded! Maybe I'll revert to making my students say enthusiastically, "I can speak English well!" at the beginning of each class. At the least, I'm sure I'd get some laughs...
Besides my conversation hours with students, I also sit in on several of the aforementioned classes with regular professors of the school. Here, I help students with in-class activities and participate in discussions and will be helping professors plan parts of their lessons in various classes. One of these first lessons includes analysis/discussion on Ray Bradbury's novel Fahrenheit 451, a science fiction classic that I adore. Also on the list of lessons is writing development, something I'm nearly jumping out of my chair to assist with soon.
Fact: Education at all levels, even universities, is free in Argentina. (more thoughts on this to come...)
Random cultural observation: It is someone's job here in Resistencia to drive around a van with a HUGE speaker/amp cabled to its top. From this speaker, music and announcements blare, advertising a local radio station. I hear it on average at least half a dozen times a day. I'm thinking this job would be pretty boring, however, today I also saw a plane flying fairly close to the ground and I almost swear that it had a speaker that was doing the same thing. Cool job?: probably. Fulfilling for me?: probably not. All the same, whoooaaa.
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