Ungrateful little farts

Recently I decided to try a new venture. The first day I arrived here in Panama I decided that I was not going to teach English. I didn’t want to get involved in trying to explain the grammar and why this word changes here and why not there. Most definitely knowing that I have bad grammar myself. How am I supposed to teach good English grammar when I always confuse when to use, was and where. After being here a few months, many people have wanted me to teach them English, or have asked me to proofread their English assignment. It reminds me of how I use to ask my Spanish speaking friends to edit my papers at the last minute. They are now getting their payback. I’ll just being walking down the street and someone would stop me and ask are you the Peace Corps volunteer, could you edit my paper? Sure when?…Uhm its due in 2 hours.

I figured sooner or later I would have to teach an English class, so I did research on how to conduct a class and use different activities to keep the class from being bored. I asked other volunteers for materials and ideas on how to do it effectively. I also wanted to know how the Panamanians taught English to other Panamanians. So I got on the internet and found a language institute that taught Spanish to Americans and English to Panamanians. It is located in Boquete about an hour away from me. I called them and asked if I could help with their classes and sit in. The lady on the phone said sure, can you meet me here in the office. When I arrived in Boquete, it was like I was back in the United States. Everyone speaks English and it is full of retired Americans. It looked like there were more Americans than Panamanians. It’s kinda like a Cuban going to Miami. When I found the office I told them who I was and they asked me, when I can start teaching? I was like WWWHHHHOOOOAAAA. I was interested in learning how yall teach. Then the guy told me that they no longer had a teacher because it is volunteer based and the last teacher left. I figured it would be good practice for when school started, so I agreed. He told me that they didn’t have a curriculum in place so I would have to make up my own materials and he didn’t really know their levels, he thought they may be intermediate. So I went home and started making a curriculum for basic and intermediate students, since I was not sure on their levels. And I had to make sure I knew what I was going to talk about. I didn’t want to be in front of the students stuttering and looking I have no idea what I was doing. This process took me around 3 hours. I traveled back to Boquete at the assigned time of class and all of the students arrived on time. I started off with the basic activities to see what they knew. They knocked out each activity without any effort. So I decided to do harder activities and asked them what else they wanted to learn. They had no idea, so I just suggested some things to them and started lecturing. At the end of the class I actually thought it was fun and I was excited to start the next one. I then told then IN SPANISH that I will be back Wednesday to teach the next class. So I went home and prepared the next lesson, but 3 times harder. And I wanted that the students have multiple classes a week, but I couldn’t afford to make the trip up there every day. So I coordinated with volunteers that live near me, and they agreed that they would take a day of the week and help teach. It was all set up, the students would have multiple teaching styles and they would get English classes 3 to 4 times a week for free. I felt proud of myself. When Wednesday came I hopped on the bus and went to Boquete. I was ready, with my man bag full of dictionaries and candy for one of the activities. I got there about 30 minutes early to make sure I had everything in order. 530 came..no students..545..no students….6 oclock..no students. I walked up to the director and asked him, where are the students? He then called them and they told him that they thought the class was only Mondays. Then he told me maybe they didn’t understand that I was going to be here today. I was like; my Spanish isn’t THAT BAD that they couldn’t understand me. I said OK, whatever, I’ll be back Monday. For some reason it didn’t bother me that much. Fast forward to Monday. Before I traveled to Boquete I went back over my lesson plans and thought of some harder activities to do. This time I arrived at exactly at 530 but there were no students again. A female director this time walked up to me and said are you Alec. Yes I am. Are you the person that came last week and the students didn’t show up? Yea that’s me. Well the students aren’t going to be here today because they don’t want to learn things that they already know. I said, well I had no idea what they already knew so I had to start with the basics, once I realized that they were a bit more advanced I started making things harder for them, and besides I am a native speaker of English I will always have something more to teach them. I have been speaker English since BIRTH. She said well they wanted to learn more advanced things, Ill give you a call if there is any change. I got up and walked out the office calmly and found the bus stop. It wasn’t until I realized that I would have to wait 30 minutes to an hour for the next bus the frustration kicked in. HOLD UP, YOU COULDN’T HAVE CALLED ME BEFORE I WASTED MY TIME AND MONEY COMING DOWN HERE, LITTLE UNGRATEUL FARTS. Needless to say, I was not a happy camper. When I got home I told the other volunteers that were going to help with the class the story, and they told me I don’t want anything to do with that.

I woke up the next morning to a phone call from the same director of the language institute, asking me can I come back or send another person to teach the English class. All I could think was ARE YOU SERIOUS, YOU ASK ME TO COME BACK WITHOUT AN APOLOGY OR ANYTHING. But it’s funny how after all of that I still wanted to teach the class. But if I figured that if I went back like she asked, no one would learn the lesson that wasting people’s time like that is NOT COOL. I didn’t really blame the students too much because of their age. Sometimes we don’t learn how to appreciate something until we are older. I admit that I didn’t always appreciate the opportunities that were given to me when I was younger. However the director still did annoy me, because she didn’t call me and explain the situation before I traveled up there the day before. I then calmly told her because of the things that happened earlier I was a bit frustrated and didn’t want it to happen again. So if after a month from today you do not have a teacher, you can call me back and I’ll let you know if I am available.