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Showing posts from October, 2015

What It's Like to Teach English in Ecuador

The river I cross every day Teaching English in Ecuador is very different here than it was to teach at home.  Where in a public school in the US, you have to know exactly where every student is at every moment. Not so much here.  Absences and tardies are excessive.  When classes start on the hour, I usually have 3 kids.  I can't really do anything for 10 minutes until they start to wander in.  Many are absent 2-3 days a week.  If I ask, my boss, nobody seems to know if a kid has dropped.  If I get a new kid, nobody seems to realize that he's now on my roster.  So I've learned to stop asking and just deal with it. The testing process is freaky.  You have one day for written and listening, and one day for oral tests which are one on one or partners.  Evidently, you can tweak it however you want to fit your needs.  If you do partners, they just copy each other though but most teachers do it that way because it's faster than one on one. If a kid is absent o