Teaching High...

So I am currently riding a teaching high :) I did my practice teaching in Quito three days last week and I loved it! Although this orientation that I have been going through seems long, it definitely helped prepare me for teaching. I have a million and one ideas floating through my head to teach the students in Portoviejo.

Details on my teaching days... the first day I co-taught with 2 other volunteers and we mainly did get to know you games that helped us figure out the level of our students. I led "Stand up if...", a classic retreat/alternative break activity- I have stored up a few of those over the years :) My students were in Advanced 1 and they were very good speakers... it was difficult because I wanted to be sure to challenge them, but it was fun because I could jump into fun activities right from the start. The first day the theme was daily routines and time. We reviewed simple past, present, and future...which they knocked out of the park. Then, we went over english idioms regarding time. For example, "once in a blue moon," "in the nick of time," and even "five o'clock shadow." The students loved it and even used many of them throughout class the next day. Tuesday was my favorite lesson... we discussed first and second conditional and to introduce the topic we listened to "If I were a boy" by Beyonce. The students filled in the blanks to the song and then we discussed the use of conditional (classic senor brand activity!). At the end of class I had 30 adult ecuadorian students singing a beyonce song in english :)

I still have a lot of room for improvement, but I have never been happier that I signed on to do this for a year! Next week I get to observe 2 other volunteers teaching which will be very helpful.

On another note, I took a one-on-one salsa lesson last week. It is only $6 and hour which is great because I am going to be needing quite a few more lessons. The quote of the day was, "jedther...dejeme guirar" (Heather... let me lead). Apparently I was trying to lead even though I didnt know what I was doing. The intimate nature of salsa is also a little tough for this gringa to fully grasp as I am used to a lot of personal space. I am apparently supposed to stare at him without looking away while being less than an inch away from his face... I could not do this with a straight face. I have another lesson on Thursday which I am sure my instructor is looking forward to :) Learning to salsa/rythm in general is one of my goals for this year.... unfortunately I don't think the salsa clubs in Charleston prepared me as well as I had thought.

This past weekend we had another adventure as a group. We went to Papallacta which has natural hot springs. Then, we came back to Quito and had chocolate and wine night at our directors apartment (which has a gorgeous view of the city!). Her sister in law makes chocolates and was doing market research for her thesis... we willingly participated as participants in this research!

Tomorrow starts my last week in Quito... I cant believe I am moving again so soon.