Teaching at Uniminuto over the past two weeks has been wonderful. I imagine it is like teaching at any other university with a few quirks of Colombia. Most of the students are happy to have native English speakers as their professors. It takes them back at first when they realize that I don’t know Spanish and will not be speaking any Spanish to them. There are cries of “oh nooooo profe” as jaws drop and heads hang in disbelief. But after that initial reaction they are happily surprised that they can follow a class led in only English. There are those students who are only taking my class because it is a required coarse, but for the most part they understand that English is a necessary tool for them to use in their careers and they want to learn.
The unique thing about Uniminuto is that the students travel through classes by their majors. So I teach one English class to all Social Work majors and another one to all Math majors. This causes a few things to happen in my classes: one is that the dynamic of the classes change drastically between one another. Social Workers think and learn completely different then a Math major would. This is good and bad. It is good because you can focus on their learning styles and their interests, however there is not the diversity that you rely on in typical classroom in the states. They generally think the same and therefore come up with similar ideas and answers. The other thing that occurs when you teach by major is that they are not divided by their proficiency. In almost every class I have one person who can speak near fluent English and in the same class I will have someone who is unable to introduce themselves or count to 10. This makes for quite a challenge for me but that’s ok because I am here for the challenge.
A Colombian quirk that we have had to learn to adjust to is the spontaneity of the University. I have learned to leave my house prepared for anything! Dale and I showed up to school for our usual routine and were told that we would need to give a speech about Valentines Day to the entire school. Oh and we would need to cancel our class that day in order for us to be there on time. As you probably know giving unprepared speeches on the spot is not one of my favorite things to do, but you roll with the punches here. Then a couple days later we come to school for our usual routine and find out that we have to go to a meeting to represent the entire English Department to the accreditation committee (Uniminuto is applying for it’s accreditation this year.) Oh and we are going to have to memorize the Mission Statement and curriculum (both in Spanish) and we should probably cancel class so that we can make it to the meeting on time. Needless to say there is no such thing as a usual routine here and we just go with the flow as much as possible. The good thing is it doesn’t give us much time to stress out about important meetings and speeches! It gives us just enough time to freak-out and complete what we need to get done, fast! Might not be such a bad system after all.
Dale’s Rant: I remember asking one of my friends on my volleyball team, Pound, about the joys of teaching. Matt Spears was a teacher in chesterfield county schools and I remember asking him what he thought about being a teacher. He responded with “Some of my best moments have been in teaching along with some of the worst.” I would say that so far in the two weeks I have been a teacher that statement is 100% accurate. There are aspects of teaching in Colombia that drive me insane and then there are those moments where I see something click in the minds of some students and then they learn something. There are also those times where my lesson plan that has worked for the last 4 classes has just failed miserably with my last class and the students leave more confused then they were when they entered the class. For now I will take those small victories! The most aggravating thing to come to terms with is that we teach 5 levels of English. Sometimes, or rather most of the time my English 5 class knows half of what my English 1 class knows which is mind-boggling but it is going to force me to get creative in Jess and I’s lesson plans. We have a great challenge ahead of us but we are up to the task and are working hard to overcome all the obstacles that we have seen so far. The important thing for us right now is that our school is incredibly supportive in our cause and is giving us the freedom to teach however we want. I feel that the students work very hard here to graduate and that it is their number 1 priority. They have jam packed day’s of working for 10 hours at their jobs and then coming to school for 6 more hours for classes every single day. They probably work 6 days a week and yet still put 100% of everything into their education. It is the motivations of the students that will help me stay motivated to teach no matter how hard or chaotic things may get here in Colombia. We are truly needed and wanted which is a blessing.
