Archive for the English teaching Category

Being A Lattitude Volunteer In Fiji: Laurel’s Story

So my placement in Fiji is a teaching placement, at a primary school called Marist Convent in Ovalau. Myself and another Lattitude volunteer Ashlee are here for 2 school terms and the first school term we were teaching.

Macarena

During our first term, we found the library which had been neglected and needed a lot of organising and tidying so we asked our head teacher if we could change our role to librarians when we began term 2. The first four or five weeks we worked hard to organise, clean and decorate the library and then we had a donation of a few hundred books from an Australian charity called Bula Books, so we added these fantastic aids to the collection of books and organised a timetable for classes to come in and have the opportunity to read and borrow books.

We spoke to teachers about students who need help with their reading and began a 40 minute reading programme twice a day every weekday inviting a few of those students who need extra help from each class for one on one sessions. It’s been fantastic to watch the students grow in confidence when they read and very rewarding.

Library Fun Time

We decided that the children would benefit more if they could come to the library more than once a week and outside of class time too so we began staying in at recess and lunchtimes and made a timetable for different activities, quiet reading, storytelling sessions, colour and crafts and fun and games. The quiet reading sessions have been really popular, we have almost 50 children lined up outside the library, the response has been fantastic. The children come in and pick books to read and sit with their friends or by themselves and it’s wonderful to see them so interested. They eat their lunch and then come straight to the library to spend as much time as possible reading the new books; it’s really wonderful to see.

I really am having such a wonderful time here, I’ll be sad to say goodbye and go home at the end of next month!

Laurel Dunne

Library Time

Yoga and the forest in the clouds

Hello again. I believe that I should start where I left off and that was the world of yoga…

 

Now, being a 19 year old chap who grew up in London, yoga and I have not been acquainted and I thought that Ecuador would be the last place I would delve into it. However, I took my gap year to explore and I plunged into yoga for an exhausting, yes exhausting, session with an Ecuadorian student, university student just to clarify, and a few of my brave companions. After being stretched this way and that and being told to do things which make you go, what!?!?!?, I completed my maiden session of yoga and was hurting in places where I normally didn’t have places. I touched my toes a few too many times for a man off my inflexibleness. So for the days following I was walking a little slower and gingerly, pardon the pun, sitting down, but this did not dampen my spirits, and I was planning my next adventure, to Loja and Vilecabamba.

Loja is a smallish city located in the south and is renowned, in Ecuador, for its Bocadillo, a type of sweet which is made of sugar, obviously, and peanuts, but there are many different varieties that can be found. I found my Bocadillo in a whopper of a Market slap bang in the middle of Loja, where they were selling a large variety of fruit, veg, meats and fish. Post Bocadillo sugar high, I headed up into the cloud forest with my pals, Tom and Richie, and went for a bit of a hike. We walked up to a peak of 3500m, which was no easy feat, and then started our descent down the ridge walk. From the ridge we could see for many a mile and all we could see was forest mile upon mile of forest, breath-taking, quite literally. When we arrived back to our hostel we were, especially yours truly, very knackered and quite happily slumped into our beds for an afternoon snooze. Post kip we set off for some food and found a very cheap place just round the corner and we had a variety of food, I had goat, tom a steak and Richie some chicken and we all had a drink, the sum total for all of us was $6, bargain. We then headed back to our beds and fell asleep watching fast and furious in Spanish, very funny.

We departed the next day for Vilecabamba, it took an hour from the centre of Loja through the countryside and into the small town. We then had a small walk to our hostel which was amazing, run by a French man it had a courtyard and plants everywhere and whilst lying in the hammock outside our room I got a view of the mountains we were riding up the next day. The rest of the day we spent recuperating from the climb by an awesome pool in a hotel just down the road which was a massive tree house structure. So cool.

The day of the riding, we were all looking forward some in anticipation and some in dread. I myself was a little nervous as I am no expert on horseback, but I do have a little experience up my sleeve. We set off from the centre of town and galloped out to the start of the trail, a river which we had to ford and then a steep mud path up the mountain, it rained heavily the day before so the path was slippery. We continued up the path for 3 to 4 hours, so we had very sore bums by lunch time. Lunch was simple but appreciated sandwiches of cheese, lettuce and tuna all in brown bread, which is very common in Ecuador. Post lunch we walked to two waterfalls one was 30ft tall and the other 100ft, with very cold water that only the mad went into, Tom and Richie. After wearing ourselves out on the two and half hour walk we were the told that we were going to fly down the mountain but before departing we munched a very tasty and very juicy pineapple. After, true to his word, we went rather rapidly down and then galloped back to the stables and slowly clambered down off our horses with the great stiffness and pain shooting up our legs and upper thighs. Great day and our last in Vilcebamba as we would be heading back to school in the evening.

Now I feel I must talk about food, yep again, because it is so good and I have been trying my hand at some Ecuadorian cooking and introducing a few English plates to my family and friends. Ecuadorian meal times are rarely without a form of maize be it boiled, Mote, fried to make popcorn, mashed up and made into pancakes then fried in oil or mashed and then steamed in their leaves, humitas. The latter was the dish that I made with the help of Claudia, the uni student, and her grandma who knows the ins and outs of all Ecuadorian cuisine. When making the humitas you start with maize on the cob and strip it, and then you mush into a paste with a hand worked machine followed by a bit of onion, oil and spices to your taste. After it was all thoroughly mixed together we stuffed the leaves of the maize and then layered them in a large pan and then steamed till the leaves turned dark purple. The results were lovely if I may say so myself, and I feel I will make them at a later date, look out England humitas are coming.

Going from the local cuisine here in Ecuador to English cuisine, the sweet sort apple crumble. In England I would eat a crumble with most Sunday lunches so being in Ecuador for the past 4 months has left me with a rather large craving. Eating that crumble after months without one was the great but the best thing was that my mum learned how to make it and has made two more since!!!

I am afraid I must leave you here, it has been a whopper of a blog today but look out for my next with markets, Corpus Christi and getting lost in a jungle!!!!!!

China Pre-departure Blog - 9 Days to Go

Hi Facebook Folks and others interested in reading this,

For those who are interested, you might be wandering what this blog is about - you’re probably gathered something from the title, but in 9 days time, I will be embarking on a 5-6 month trip to China with Lattitude Global Volunteering (as you do!) where I will be taking part in a teacher training course for 2 weeks and then unleashed -prepared or not- into the Eastern Jiangsu province to attempt to teach spoken English to Chinese students aged 16-18. As well and in-country and local travel, I will also be taking on the rather mammoth-task of learning Mandarin during my stay, taking lessons in the college that I’ll teach in. Out of the 25-or-so other volunteers who will also be taking up these challenges, and who I will get to know on my training course early on, I will be sent to my province in China with only one other volunteer, where we will be sharing a flat close to our college. It is technically a voluntary position, but I will be given an allowance by Lattitude to supplement daily needs. As mentioned previously, I will be doing some travel during my placement (which is 5 months) but will be doing most of the large-scale travelling afterwards for hopefully another month!

This blog is going to be based on these (hopefully) spectacular adventures I’m going to have in this country, from the mandarin-struggles of trying to make sure I order a drink correctly rather than accidentally insulting the shop-keeper’s ancestors, to the challenges of teaching my own language in the classroom. My aim is currently to write a blog a week whilst I’m there.

You might be wondering why I’ve chosen to go spend 6 months in a country whose language I don’t speak, and furthermore try to teach students there the groovy language of english. There are numerous reasons. First of all I’M ON A GAP YAH!!! YAH YAH! I probably won’t get an opportunity like this again. And after studying the Chinese 20th century for History at college last year I knew that if I was going to visit another country, I’d visit China. I absolutely loved studying it.

Secondly, I kind of made the decision that I’d like to live in another country and work there, as opposed to visiting it as a tourist. I can’t help feeling I’ll learn so much more about China by learning to adapt there and spending time with the people. That’s where the work comes into play as well, so that I have some sort of focus. Additionally, it’s always something more-than interesting to put on the CV later on!

Another reason why I’m doing this is partly to try and learn another language. Having done French GCSE and AS level, I thoroughly enjoyed this practice, although I am by no means fluent, and haven’t tried speaking French for a good year and a bit. Subsequently, having already spent a month of my Gap Yah in Saudi Arabia with the National Youth Theatre, picking up on various Arabic phrases to get me by, and enjoying doing so, I have missed speaking a foreign language. You’re probably wondering, ‘well then why on earth are you trying to learn MANDARIN of all languages? Why not continue pursuing French???’ I did consider going to work in France, but my eagerness to explore China took priority over this. Not the least to say additionally, that many of us could be having to speak Mandarin in 50 years time, with China’s growing economic supremacy. Although an extremely tough language it will be to learn, it would undoubtedly be beneficial to understand even the smallest and simplest of phrases. It would be rather unrealistic, to think that I could return 100% fluent. I would however, like to be able to get to a level where I can hold a simple conversation. And that’s just speaking it, I have no idea what I’m going to be like reading and writing it (AAAAGGGHHHH!).

Another reason for taking on this placement, is because I would like to experiment with the idea of teaching. I’ve always been interested in it; teaching as a profession is something I’m certainly open to trying in the future, although for a while now I have had my sights set on making it as an actor. But with teaching, I have had previous experiences of running small workshops in both Uganda and Saudi Arabia. However, these have been mostly Drama-based, and I have not yet taken on the task of teaching someone English. I don’t know if it’s naive of me to think that if I enjoy learning one language, I could enjoy teaching my own, but hey ho, that’s what made me think this placement could be something I could handle, and eventually enjoy.

In reference back to my love of acting, this was conversely why I chose to go and teach english in another country in the first place. During the last 6 years, my summers and other holidays have mostly been taken up with a theatre project of some sort, which I have thrown myself into. I’ve absolutely loved it. However, I did start to wonder if there were other things I could be doing, other than acting and theatre. If I was going to take a gap year, I would do something completely different. Besides, it’s not like I’ll be short of Drama and Theatre in September, as I’ll be attending Royal Holloway University to study exactly these things. For now, time to do something that I’ll probably never get to do again.

There are various things I am looking forward to in the coming months, such as understanding the processes of learning mandarin; the vastly different factor in the language being that the tones come into play when speaking it. For example, ‘ma’ can mean ‘mother’, ‘horse’, ‘slow’, ‘ride’, ‘beat’ depending on what tone you use (I’ll leave it to your imaginations what you can convey in a sentence with only that word). I’m guilty in not having prepared myself with a lot of phrases yet, but I have some brilliant language learning software and phrasebooks to help me, as well as the lessons I’ll be receiving. The different food, methods of teaching, apartment, and what my class will be like is something I am also looking forward to discovering, but there’s a great deal of unknowing as well as excitement to what lies ahead; I have no idea what to expect. But that’s the fun in it, isn’t it?

Will provide an update soon, thanks for reading, let’s do this!

 

International Education Week 2013

edu week blog

The 18th - 24th November marks International Education Week 2013 - focussing on promoting language learning worldwide.

International Education Week (IEW) is an opportunity to promote the importance of building an international dimension into the education of young people in the UK at primary and secondary levels. We know that familiarity with other cultures and modern foreign languages skills are an essential part of preparing young people to work in the increasingly globalised economy.

Lattitude supports this through its variety of programmes that see not only British volunteers working abroad, but also by hosting volunteers from all over the world in the UK.

Lattitude volunteers work in schools all over the UK; making use of their native languages such as Spanish or German working as specialist Language Assistants. Or, through supporting schools as Teaching Assistants, simply enable the school children to interact with people from a different culture and background from an early age.

This year IEW will support a major policy shift in UK schools. From September 2014 primary schools in England will be required to teach a foreign language to pupils at Key Stage 2 (upper primary). There is also increasing policy support in other UK countries for language learning at primary level.

International Education Week celebrates the value of international work in encouraging young people to:

  • Become global citizens
  • Develop language skills
  • Improve their chances of employment in a global economy.

All of which are goals that tie in with Lattitude Global Volunteering’s mission in providing structured, educational overseas volunteering placements for young people worldwide.

In discussing the importance of developing language skills, the desire for many to learn to speak English and the subsequent demand for native English speakers cannot be ignored – over 1.5 billion people are actively learning English and British volunteers, with native language skills are in a position to be of real assistance. Find out more about how you can teach English overseas on our website:

You can also find out more about International Education Week on the British Council website

First Blog Entry!! FUNDRAISING so far…

Right everyone! Finally got round to starting my first of many blog entries. I got my official acceptance to the project - Teaching in Ghana, September 2013 - over the Christmas break. Since then I have began various fundraising activities.

My name is Struan James and I am from a small village called Ullapool on the West Coast Highlands. I applied for this amazing project as the opportunity to go to somewhere like Ghana is a rare one. I also see teaching as a more than likely career option for me so the experience would be very helpful if I decide to study education in university.

I started my fundraising with a few bag packing days in my local Tesco and one in Inverness. As these were quite small stores I was raising less than a £100 per time but I welcome anything small or large towards my fundraising total. I have this problem due to where I live as my school is small so making big money quick is harder than it must be for those in big schools in the city. However this did make me eligible to claim a £500 bursary which makes me feel much more comfortable about reaching my goal by September. I also wrote over 100 letters to grants and trusts however received nothing but negative replies from them all which was quite unfortunate. After that it was a few small events like table top sales and bake sales until I decided to enter the Inverness Half Marathon.

I participated in the half marathon with my friend who was fundraising for her gap year in Honduras with the organisation Project Trust. Marathon day was on the 17th of March and i had being training for two months prior to it. I had raised roughly £800 in sponsors which was a massive bonus towards my fundraising total. I ran in my Lattitude t-shirt through rain, wind and cold! Got a bit of a battering and it was harder than expected but I finished the 13 miles in a time of 02:04:50.

 

Before Run

Before Run

 

After Run

After Run

 

 

I have now had nearly all my vaccinations other than yellow fever and am currently focusing my attention on my higher exams. After them I start part time work so if I do happen to fail to fundraise my total I can pay the rest myself. I am in discussion about a possible Africa night in the village which could raise almost all of the remainder needed as I am roughly £1000 away from finishing. I would also like to organize a ceilidh during the summer and if that happens I shall definitely be done!

Not the most exciting blog post but I cant wait until departure time and by then I will hopefully have much more exciting news to share!!

Teaching English Abroad

English teacher volunteer

If you are reading this and understand every word, then you’re already an ideal candidate to teach English abroad. Teaching English overseas is now one of the most popular choices for recent graduates and gap year students, and it’s very easy to see why.

Firstly, it allows you to travel relatively cheaply, as you’re actually living abroad and you have access to some of the world’s most stunning landscapes on your doorstep. You’ll experience local life and get to interact with locals on a day to day basis, immersing yourself in a culture far different from your own - something that is impossible to experience on a fortnight’s package holiday deal. Though you’d be teaching in English, your language skills will inevitably improve, too, whether you go to Spanish-speaking Ecuador and Argentina, or China or India as you’ll be living and breathing it.

If you know that you want to become a teacher, the experience you gain from teaching English is invaluable. There’s a huge number of people who apply for PGCEs (Postgraduate Certificate of Education, a diploma required in order to teach) without any prior experience, so if you know teaching’s the job for you, then an English teaching placement in a foreign country will boost your CV credentials drastically and make you far more marketable to employers than the average student with no experience. Now that the cost of a PGCE has risen, demand for these places is higher than ever, and so universities can afford to be selective about whom they choose – and teaching abroad definitely stands out against the rest of the competition.

What’s great about these schemes is that if you’re a native speaker of English, you’re virtually halfway there. All that’s required is an enthusiasm for teaching, good communication and a friendly nature. You don’t even need to know another language in order to teach abroad, but you’ll likely pick up some of the native tongue anyway, thanks to close interaction with your students and, if you’re lucky enough, language classes in your area which one Lattitude volunteer in Argentina experienced.

There are over 250,000 English speakers working abroad as teachers, so chances are, you’ll get to meet people from all over the world and gain networking opportunities. Many English teaching placements are actually found via word of mouth so it’s by far more advantageous to get to know people and find out about these exciting placements that way.

If you think of the number of times that you’ve been inspired by a teacher, you’ll realise what an important job it is to educate the world’s next generation, in particular teaching them one of the world’s fastest growing languages. But it doesn’t mean that you have to be stuck in a classroom all day making lots of lesson plans - it’s allowed to be fun!

Find out more about teaching English

5 Quick and Easy English Games for the Volunteer Abroad

5 Quick and Easy English Games for the Volunteer Abroad

by Will Peach

So you’ve rocked up abroad and you’re about to start your new teaching placement. Nervous yet? It’s only natural. But before you start quaking in your boots and worrying about how you’re going to fill your time in front of class, take a moment to breathe and grab yourself a warm cup of coffee. I’m about to soothe your pain.

Quick and easy “teach English” games are a staple in the life of the volunteer abroad. As any teacher will tell you, having these in your arsenal is a failsafe akin to travelling the world on the riches of Bill Gates. The best thing about these however? You don’t need a classroom or much time to prepare. They really are simple enough to take with you and use anywhere at anytime.

Ready? Let’s get cracking.

 

Bonk

The rather rude sounding “bonk” is actually rather innocent in nature. This game involves getting all your “students” to stand in a circle and then you start off by shouting out a category they will know vocabulary from (works well with beginners and things like animals, sports and months - with higher levels use things like adverbs for example). Each student shouts a word related to the category out in a clockwise motion starting from the student on your left. If a word is repeated or a student hesitates you “bonk” them on the head with a soft object and they sit out the game. The last one standing wins.

 

Listen Closely

“Listen Closely” is one of my favourite teach English games because it allows you to really get to know the personalities of your students. It works by dividing the students into teams (pairs or threes works best) and giving them each a name. You then say a sentence that is either correct or incorrect using the vocabulary they know. For beginners try: “Will is wearing a skirt and blue socks” and for higher levels say something like “Will studied in the University of Sussex”. Each team has to then say whether the sentence is correct or not and if not they have to give their correction. Switch around the team that goes first to make it fairer.

 

Draw What You Hear

This game involves having something to draw on and works best if you have students running (or walking) from a distance. “Draw What You Hear” is a great game to gauge the language level of your students and to revise things they might have just learnt. It involves separating a class into two teams and then having them run to some paper or a board and drawing what you describe. The fastest team to draw the correct thing gets two points, if the opposing team draws the correct thing you also award them a point. This is especially great for describing things like people (body parts/clothes) and landscapes (natural/buildings).

 

Would I Lie To You

How many times have I used this one? I can’t even remember! “Would I Lie to You” is based on the BBC panel show featuring Rob Brydon and is an incredibly useful game for introducing yourself to a new group of students in order to “break the ice”. Playing it is easy. List five things about you, three sentences must be true and two should be lies. Make these sentences relatively easy to understand if it’s your first time with a class and be willing to repeat them several times until understood. Once finished get the students to place bets on the ones they deem true and the others they feel are false. Once finished and the correct answers are revealed switch the game around and get your students to do the same for each of themselves and play as a class.

 

Hot Seat

This last game I’m recommending I’ve taken with me to places like Russia, Vietnam - and now Spain - and still students seem to love it. Setting up is quite easy; all you need is a more than four students and a bit of space for two of them to sit with their back to you. You’ll need to choose words or phrases they’ve previously studied and have them written out or whispered so that the students facing you can understand them. Then these students have to mime or explain the word or phrase (without saying the word itself) so that the students with their backs to you can guess. The first correct guess wins.

And that’s it! It’s pretty safe to say that these five games became the lifeblood of my English classes abroad and it’s entirely possible, of course, to interpret them in a way fit for your own circumstances. Just make sure you get some serious teaching in their somewhere!

Good luck and safe volunteering.