Panama Update #29
August 13, 2008
Nikki and I had lunch at the cafeteria today and 2 more people asked to arrange private English tutoring. One person knew Nikki from work and the other person knew me from the Yoga class and had seen my sign advertising for tutoring. One signed up for 5 hours of tutoring a week and one signed up for 2 hours a week. So far I have about 3 or 4 hours of tutoring a day. Today I had the private tutoring class and also the English class I am giving for the guides at the island research center. For the private lesson the person had quite a bit of textbook English while growing up in Colombia but has never had a chance to practice it very much. We practiced simple English conversation for the whole hour. I asked her questions about her family and what she did over the weekend. I had the Oxford Picture Dictionary so she could point to any words she did not know so she wouldn't have to speak Spanish.
The class tonight with the guides was different since it was a group and all 6 of the students were very skilled. We mostly had a discussion for the 2 hours and we asked each other questions about their work and all sorts of topics. They were very interested to hear if I liked Panama, and a lot of suggestions on what I should do and see hear. They also wanted to hear all about our life back in Minnesota. They wanted me to correct them if they made an error while they were speaking, and so I interrupted them now and then. Mostly they had trouble with past tense, word pronunciation, and missing articles. I liked both types of tutoring and the students seemed happy afterwards, but I will get more feedback as we go along. The English tutoring is fun for me so far and I feel comfortable doing it. The experience from working at Wellstone International High School in the Minneapolis Public Schools helped me prepare for this. For the six years I was at that school I got to watch the ESL teachers in action and learn from them. If I stay interested, maybe eventually I will pick up my ESL teaching license.
