Tales from the Gringo File

I have a few funny stories/ anecdotes from my last week and a half of teaching to share!

The Gringo File:
At the school (and in Ecuador in general) my fellow foreign teachers and I are referred to as 'gringos', which is a slang term that can mean, foreigners, Americans or white people.  This week we were in the office of the principal sorting out some administrative issues with our flights and visas and we noticed that the file that held all of our personal information was labelled 'GRINGOS'.  It was all I could do not to burst out laughing.

Children of the Blitz:
The transport home from the school for students is in 20 passenger vans, there are approximately 30 that leave from the school and deposit children home to various parts of Quito. Attempting to get 600 students into the right vans in a 15 minute window is nothing short of a chaotic/ heroic feat, made more impressive by the fact that about one third of the students are under the age 8.  The first few days were a kerfuffle of tiny vaguely confused/ upset looking children with names tags around their necks being frantically dragged around the pick up area by various adults.  One of the teachers equated this spectacle of child transportation to the children of England being evacuated to the countryside during the Blitz of London during World War II.  

Children of the Blitz.

"Habla Ingles":
During one of my first classes with my grade 6's I was asking my students what they thought some of the rules in the classroom should be and one girl raised her hand and said "habla ingles" which means speak in English in Spanish.  Ah the irony.

Whack- a- mole:
My students have been writing down interesting facts about themselves and then presenting another student to the class.  Overall this has been a useful exercise, but one issue has been getting the class to remain quiet when other students are speaking.  I have found that it is most helpful and least disruptive to go and stand beside the students who are talking, but this results in students on the other side of the class starting to talk resulting in a sort of whack- a - mole effect in my movement around the classroom.

Cultural Similarities and Differences:
I have been doing diagnostic testing with my students to test their English speaking abilities, to do this I have been doing short five question interviews with each of my students.  One of my questions is "what are you scared of?" and at least a dozen of my students have answered that they are afraid of butterflies, which I neither understand nor can I explain.  Another of my questions is "what are three things you love?" and many of my students have answered that one of the things they love is the band One Direction.  This has lead to a rule that I had to institute during summer kayak camps in Winnipeg and that is: no excessive discussion/ fact giving about the band One Direction.  One of the more memorable answers I got to the question name three things you love was "Justin Bieber, One Direction and Jesus".

In additional good news, I had my first Spanish lesson yesterday, my fellow teachers and I placed 3rd in a trivia contest at our local Irish pub and we are leaving for a weekend in Montanita on Friday night!

Ciao!