Teaching at Horeb - Week 1

The teachers and students prayed for a missionary to come and help at the school.  I guess you got to be careful what you pray for, because they got me.  I honestly still have no idea how to teach English, but they all speak English better now than they did a week ago!  That is progress right?

The Horeb School in Cotzal has 83 students currently (20 more than expected) and I teach all of them.  It is an elementary school from first to sixth grade.  I teach about 30 minutes of each grade each day.  Going in, I really had no idea the speed in which children would learn in each grade.  I tried to make a lesson plan in my head but with six grades and no teaching experience, I figured winging it was the best strategy.

Teachers Mathias and Reina line up the students on the first day

My first day, my only goal for all my students was for them to understand "How are you?,"  "Good," "What is your name?," and "my name is ..."  That was a success or so I thought.  The next day as I reviewed the lesson, most of the first and second graders were staring at me with a blank look on their face.  Over the week, I taught numbers, the alphabet, subject pronouns, and with the older kids even got to the verb "to be."

As you walk into the door of the school, there is a concrete slab basketball court.  I have yet to see any basketball played yet on it though but a ton of soccer.  In fact, during recess, there's multiple games of soccer going on at once in that same court.  In the middle of those games are several other types of games like tag, twirling in circles, etc.  Recess is utter chaos.  I do not know how those kids keep everything straight.

The classrooms are underground.  I have already grown accustomed to them, but if a child in the United States was magically transformed to a classroom here, they would be in a state of shock.  They are small, dirty, with a cement floor, and the windows have broken shards of glass.  Sound travels freely among all the classrooms and if one class has kids screaming, the whole school can hear them as if they were in the same room.  Really all the classrooms put together is probably about the size of one classroom in the United States.  It is hard for me to remember what the size of one looks like now though because Guatemala has become my world.   

There was an earthquake my first week there.  It lasted only a few seconds but it was enough to scare a lot of kids (and teachers).  The construction of the school is not exactly up to earthquake standards and it really felt like the roof was going to cave in.  The kids jumped from their seats and started running for the door, once it was clear it was only a minor earthquake, we shooed them back to their seats.

During a typical school day, I start with the first graders about 9:00.  I then teach the second graders, the third graders, the fourth graders, and finish up with the fifth and sixth graders.  The fifth and sixth graders share a classroom because there are not enough teachers and not enough classrooms.  I was blown away by that class because they had such a desire to learn.  My first day after I finished the lesson, they kept asking me question after question about how to say certain things in English.  They finish their day at 12:30 but I think those students would stay till past 1:00 if they could.  I was amazed how much they learned in a week and I am excited to see how far we can get before I leave.

The fourth graders are all crammed into a tiny classroom that is literally the size of a very small bedroom or like a storage closet in the United States.  Those guys are also eager learners and very enthusiasatic.  I really wanted to ingrain in their brains the subject pronouns: I, you, we, they, he, she.  They yelled them at the top of their lungs as I tested their knowledge.  Having that small classroom is crowded but it also feels more intimate, which is kind of neat.


The third graders grew on me a lot during the week.  The first couple of days, they were very hard to teach.  I think part of the reason is their teacher was not in the classroom with us.  With the cultural differences and language differences, I really have no idea what is appropriate discipline.  In that class are a couple of girls who play futbol at recess with the boys, which I find pretty neat in a machismo culture (which I am happy to say is gradually becoming less so).   They are an interactive and competitive group and once I began testing their knowledge, they really perked up and started learning.  Friday, they were begging me not to leave, to give them another question they could answer.

First Grade classrom

The second graders are my toughest class.  There are some discipline problems and a couple of rowdy boys.  None of the kids are bad kids, they really try to learn, but they just don't have much of an attention span!  As I tried to teach them numbers from 11 to 20 (they had already knew 1-10), when I said 13, 14, 15, etc, they would just say "pepsi! pepsi!" over and over again.  I need to invent some games or teach them some songs or something.  Singing is not my strong suit. 

The first graders are surprisingly quiet and attentive.  Unfortunately, this does not mean they are understanding or listening.  As I ask them what their names are, they whisper in a barely audible voice their full name which is really like 4 names.  Remembering all these names, 80+ in total, in another language, feels like an almost impossible task.  Luckily I have 2 more months.

The teachers and Tabita, the director, have all been very kind.  I really enjoy the teachers I work with and I will write about them in another post.  They want me to teach them English as well.   

Thank you all for your love, support, and prayers!