Costa Rica: Español, Escuela, y Familia - 5/25

¡Hola! Mis Amigos. 

I'm back! Sorry for being away for awhile. As with any trip abroad one should expect a few things to not go according to plan. This week I found that out first hand in two cases. The first was that I got sick (breaking one of my goals) and had to stay at home on Wednesday. They believe it may have been from the water, but the water is generally safe. I was just one of the unlucky ones. Then my card adapter for my iPad malfunction so I haven't been able to upload pictures. And no one ever wants to be unable to post pictures to Facebook! Due to the lack of postings I will be posting a general overview on three categories; Español, Escuela, y Familia.

Español

- I have officially moved into the simple phrase and simple sentences stage

- my vocabulary though is still lacking. I feel that may be due to spending a lot of time with my classmates and not as much with the locals. 

- This week I learned both present and past tenses as well as directions and how to ask questions.

- Our teacher created a calming affect in the classroom throughout the rest of the week and allowed us to be silly and curious with the language 

- She continued to use a lot of games, manipulatives, and student created situations to teach the language. Allowing us to create with language kept us engaged and create our own connections for our new language skills. 

Here we are playing guess who in Spanish. Practicing our descriptors and listening skills. 

Takeaway: Exposure, exposure, exposure. Can't say enough about exposing ones self to the language and practicing it. Engage, engage, and engage more. The more students are having fun and naturally curious about the language the more students will retain. 

Escuela y La Carpio

So one of the best things about this trip was our different projects in the community we got to do. The first was that we got to spend two mornings at a school in Heredia working with 3rd and 4th graders with English. The first day we worked on body parts. 

This is Johan. He was really shy at first, but opened up right away as soon as we broke out the crayons. He loves to draw and was able to label most of the parts with a few hints. Language wasn't as much of a barrier as I thought it would be. I think this was due to having objects, pictures, and other visuals ready to help with communication.

This is Stephen. On this day we worked on shapes, descriptors of shapes, and personal hygiene. He was super polite. Even came right up to me and asked me what my name was. He loved getting to do a scavenger hunt around the school to find different objects. Again the language barrier wasn't as big as I thought it would be. However; certain concepts and labels were hard to convey. 

Takeaway: Kids need to feel comfortable with you in order to speak a new language. Either due to shyness or just not wanting to be wrong. Cause no one ever wants to be in a position where they can't convey their thoughts. Also hands on activities are a great way to build vocabulary, concepts, and break that anxiety barrier. It's similar to a pre-school mindset that I like to call intentional play. You retain more when your having fun and engaged.

Our other service we got to do was in La Carpio. This little settlement was created by a few immigrants many years ago. Now it's packed full of immigrants and low socioeconomic peoples. The town is actually built along side a river and the city dump! The houses are very very tiny, constructed out of aluminum in some cases. Most don't have any furniture inside besides a bed, a place for the bathroom, and a cooking area. There is electricity and some running water throughout the town. Every day is a struggle to make ends meet. However; despite these hardships the people have hope! A lot of this can be contributed to the Humanitarian Fundacíon. This small charity organization was started by a former teacher in the United States who moved into the area to specifically work with the people. She works directly with the people and helping them take ownership in the changes being made. For my group we had the majority go out with a few grandmas; they basically run the streets haha, and talk to the locals about a new recycling program they want to start up in order to clean the streets. Myself and two other girls stayed at the office and worked in the daycare they had set up. The children were really shy but once we played for a few minutes the kids really opened up. It really didn't matter that we couldn't speak each others language they just wanted attention. I even had the most stressful event happen; I was in charge of putting the last block on top of this TALL tower. Everyone just stopped and stared at me as I tried to not knock it over haha. 

I bought this doll as a way to keep myself motivated in helping those in need. These are handmade from the women in the community. 

Takeaway: The biggest gift you can give someone is hope. Generally people will work hard if they know that it's worth it, aka hope for a better future. Also getting into the community and incorporating everyone in what you do makes the biggest impact. As an outsider it does no good to not have any local ownership. This experience really makes me want to get involved in the community outside my future school. Invest in the community achieve a better future. Lastly in cannot be stressed enough even the smallest acts make a difference. This lady just started by having a women's group. 

Familia

So I just want to say if you ever want to do a study abroad with a host family Latin America is a great place to go. They are just simply hospitable and friendly. Not to mention my mama tica took really good care of my when I was sick. I even got homemade chicken and rice soup. Since I can't simply put into words how amazing this family was I will be using pictures. 

Here's Kevin (left) and Anthony (right) pumping up their new soccer ball. From this point on we just played soccer every day when I came home from school. Kevin got a kick out of making me look silly. 

Here's the whole family outside watching fireworks. Kevin and Rosa are vey much into fireworks. I found out that this past week was a special week in this Catholic country; not exactly sure what it entails. 

Typical night hanging out with the family. Not so typical was the choice of food, French fries and hamburgers. 

This is Brandon (far right) and his girlfriend hanging out with little Abigail eating some cake. 

My mama tica and myself on our last morning. She was truly comforting, friendly, and we had a few laughs in our language mixups throughout the week. 

Kevin at his soccer practice. You can see the church in the background. Soccer and the church are very much a center point of the community. 

Takeaway: Family is everything! You live within close approximation of family, you hangout with family, you take care of family. And family even includes guest. Everyone treats everyone with respect and holds them accountable. I saw that the parents are very much involved with their children's lives. I absolutely hate hearing that Latino families don't care about education. All of the family cares about education. I know now that I can be comfortable with hanging out with families of my students and really building that relationship up. As with any child building that family connection creates another academic support system for that child. 

Other observations:

- it's really hard to do homework when you have to keep looking up words in the directionally just for the instructions part. This is why key words should be written in L1 if possible.

- Locals will help you learn the language if they know you are trying to acquire the language

- Even though the country is starting a bilingual movement I have yet to see a lot of English literature displayed except in tourist areas. 

We are heading to Monte Verde today and meeting our new host families! We won't be having a lot of access to Internet, but I will try to post by mid-week! 

Hasta luego! 

"Any progress is good progress." - anonymous 

Costa Rica: Mi nueva familia - 5/20/13

¡Hola! Mis amigos. 

Been a few days since I posted and I definitely need to catch y'all up to speed. A lot has happened since I last posted on here. As you can see I can now write a few words, but I'll get to that later. To start with I'll go back to Sunday (domingo). 

Sunday was a pretty eventful day. To start off with we went with our guide, Javier, to a volcano outside of Heredia. Along the way we stopped at a coffee farm on the side of the mountain. It was so beautiful. 

Coffee is one of their main exports along with; tourism, textiles, and electronics. Of course I had to buy some coffee beans while I was there. I bought some "Peabody" beans which means the beans are whole instead of in half. They can't sell this type of coffee on the international market, but they say its naturally sweeter. My roommates are into coffee so hopefully they'll enjoy the Costa Rican flavor! 

The volcano Poas was a great visit as well. We had to climb up to around 3500 feet above sea level! And I believe even a little bit more if I'm not corrected. Needless to say my heart was in overdrive and I could feel the air getting thinner. The view was worth it though. 

That smoking thing in the middle? That's the still active volcano (clarification: it hasn't done anything in a long time). To my surprise its not in a cone shape that we typically associate with volcanoes. Instead it's down in a crater. What was also interesting was that the smog from the volcano would overcome us without any notice. 

Finally we arrived at the school to take our placement test. As well as walk around the community.

The wonderful CPI logo placed at the front of their building. 

Every city/town has the same setup. Centrally located is the church, soccer field, school, and a bar. Shows a lot about the society on a micro level. 

Home-stay placements finally happened!

One of my fellow students meeting her mama tica. (Unfortunately I don't have a picture of me meeting mine)

 This is mi nueva familia! My mama tica is in the top right of the picture. She's super friendly and welcomed me right into the home. Over casado we pieced together a conversation, getting to know each other. One point she even got out a dictionary so that we could point out words to each other. She lives with her husband in a small house that's connected to five other houses via a giant patio. Each of the other houses host family members. In the picture above is most of the family hanging out in one of the houses. Three sisters, a brother, and her mom plus respective husbands with 5 nieces and nephews total. Even though I couldn't speak that well we all hung out, laughed at the tv, piece meal conversations, and played UNO. Yes, they do play UNO in Latin America. Which they are very good at or at least better than me! 

Today was muy bien. It was our first day of class. In the morning we got to hear a lecture from one of the ministers of public education and a English as a Foreign Language Teacher about the school system in Costa Rica. Even though the EFL and ESL branches are different overall, but there are some similarities when it comes to language acquisition. Plus it was neat to hear about the school system in general. Did you know the public schools are majority of the time better than the public schools? 

Side note: my lunch was very delicious. We went to a small restaurant down the street and had great empanadas with cheese and meat. 

In the afternoon we met our Spanish teachers! We were each put into groups of three. My group was a semi beginning group. Our teacher though was awesome. She was really engaging and put off a friendly vibe. We worked on the letters, common syllables, greetings, numbers, days, and months. All was done in a super awesome environment involving creating our own dialogue for pictures and playing hangman. By end of the first class we were laughing and feeling a lot more comfortable speaking Spanish. Can't wait for tomorrow's class! 

Great view from the classroom! Perfect for studying Spanish. 

To wrap up the day I came home to a very excited Kevin. I hadn't even put my bag down and he wanted to play more UNO (he's nine). After dinner (casado with ham) we played along with his cousin Anthony. It was such a blast. Everyone was yelling, screaming, and laughing from the enjoyment of the game. Again I lost, but I beat Kevin which he was overly dramatic in his lost haha. Overall, another great night in Costa Rica! 

Kevin showing Anthony a card trick. 

Other things to make note of:

- moved from babbling to simple phrases

- dictionary is being less used in short conversations

- mi nueva familia is very friendly and family oriented as seen by the living arrangements

- Kevin is the perfect conversation partner because he loves to talk and no judgment on me 

- CPI uses the communicative approach, which is up to current theories in language acquisition 

- I love that we got to create our own input and output in class 

Soy cansado. Tomorrow we're making our first school visit! Adios mis amigos. 

"Just keep babbling." 

 

 

Costa Rica: He llegado - 5/18/13

I have made it to Costa Rica! It's been two days and so far I have not gotten lost nor hurt. So big ups to myself. The group that I came with arrived on Friday midday at the San Jose airport. Each one of us was excited to begin our new journey and nervous at the same time. Customs to say the least was a bit stressful for our newer travelers. 

Our CPI guide for the trip met us right outside the arrival area and escorted us straight to our bus. Lots of people will try to ask you about taking their cab or carrying your luggage in order to get your money. Justin, our CPI guide, was kind enough to keep everyone away. We also learned our first Spanish phrase; "Pura Vida!" Which is the "pure life." It's a common way to greet people and the country's outlook on life. Hopefully, I'll be able to explain more later. 

The first place we stopped was to get food. 

This dish is called Casado con Pollo; a staple in Costa Rica. The drinks are fruit blended in water; I got mango. Needless to say it was delicious and Justin introduced us to Lazone which is a type of sauce you put on the rice.  The rest of the first day was just getting settled into the hotel and going to the bank. We did make a quick stop to the market and tried some more fruit. My favorite was Mamon which looks like a large grape. You peel off the skin and chew around the seed in the middle. It was kinda tart, but I liked that I could pop it in my mouth and act like it was a jawbreaker. 

Today though was awesome. Our first full day in Costa Rica consisted of going to La Paz Waterfall Gardens. There we got to experience a lot of the local animals and plants.

Friendly Toucan!

Monkey agreed that it was snack time. 

     This little guy almost ran into me. 

Though he may be tiny, he is definitely dangerous. Say hola poisonous dart frog!

Group photo at one of the waterfalls we went to. Having fun so far! 

Other observations

- No street names anywhere

- All or most of the houses have tin roofs

- All the houses had gates on them 

- Restaurants and bars seem to have kids playgrounds, definitely shows how important family and children are to the culture

- Each city or village has the church, soccer field, and bar in the same area. These seem to be of high priority in their lives where religion, passion, and social collide. 

Tomorrow I will be meeting my host family. So excited!!! First real opportunity to use Spanish socially. Good thing I bought a good phrase book haha. I'm sure I can babble my way through the first encounter. But for now no more worrying, time to rest. 

Till next time! Pura Vida! 

Immerse Yourself: Costa Rica - pre departure 5/16

As of right now I'm a mere 10 hours from partaking in my first immersion into a brand new culture since starting this blog. My destination? Costa Rica. A fan favorite along with its buddy Panama for those who venture into Latin America. I will be partaking in this immersion with 22 other students from UNC-Wilmington. Our goal; to put ourselves in the shoes of those students within the public school system who come from Latin America. On this trip we will be taking Spanish classes, having home-stays with locals, and going into primary schools. 

Now, why would I personally go on this trip? For several reasons. The first, is that I'm studying to be an English-as-a-Second-Language teacher. Also the largest population that I'd be serving in North Carolina is that of Latino descent. Thus by going on this trip I would be acquiring Spanish and developing first hand knowledge of the culture. But mostly I'm going on this trip for these guys. 

These students have impacted my life beyond measure this semester. They helped me become a better teacher and realize that I can make a different. I got see these students grow so much; some even went from non-verbal in English to chatting up a storm using short phrases! Going on this trip means that I will be able to further impact their lives and others of similar background. 

As with any adventure I need to set some goals. Some will be pretty high and others not so much. For instance I hardly know any Spanish; if I could I would have circled babbling for my level of Spanish. Here's a list of some goals I have:

- Acquire enough Spanish to hold a conversation; which I can build upon in the States

- Try a lot of yummy Latin Food

- Don't get sick eating said yummy Latin Food

- Talk to all the locals I can

- Enjoy being with the host families; maybe they'll teach me how to play futbol

- Understand more about the culture within Costa Rica

- Understand more about the different geographical features of Costa Rica 

- Become one with the locals

Even just by completing some of these goals I think will have a great impact on my teaching career. From being able to speak Spanish to newly arrived students to catering lessons based on cultural background of the students. Also I can see myself using facts about Costa Rica in my lessons to bring more culture into the classroom. Many of the students within an ESL program do not have the money to travel, by introducing Costa Rica will give them more culture in their lives. I noticed this by doing a lesson on Australia and actually using pictures I took in Sydney. The students loved it! I see Costa Rica filing that role. 

Temperature check: Right now I'm a little nervous, but excited. I'm nervous more so about the home stay. The language barrier I can work with, but I'm hoping me and my host family get along. Going to another country to stay with people you've never met is quite the leap. I did hear they have a son so maybe he can be my little buddy who teaches me the ropes. Once I get settled in there the rest should fall into place. I just need to try speaking Spanish as often as possible. I'm sure the Ticos will be kind enough to help me out as long as I try. 

Time for bed! Adios! 

"Just keep babbling." - mantra for language learning