How do our volunteers assist existing English teachers?

Your job is not to work as a solo English teacher, then leave after a few months.  Rather, your role as a TEV volunteer is to work beside English teachers in secondary schools (colegios) or general teachers in primary schools (escuelas) to ensure that the students are learning English, as it is a government mandated part of the curriculum.  Volunteers will most likely share their work between two schools, and most likely will move from classroom to classroom each day.  Class sizes will very between five and fifty students, and with being in up to 6 classes each day- and perhaps working in more than one school, volunteers will interact with many children!  Directors of the schools will decide how much time volunteers will work with each class, but it will probably be in between 25 minutes and an hour and a half.

Upon arrival, volunteers will get a feel for their students’ current English levels.  They will then figure out what they can do to improve their levels as much as they can in their time in Ecuador.  Volunteers will need to abide by the Department of Education curriculum, but will have some freedom to add lessons and enhance activities from the textbook.  If working in colegios, volunteers will work with English teachers who have probably been teaching for quite a while.  It goes without saying that volunteers will need to respect their teaching styles and help in ways they can without trying to take over.  Most likely, they will assist in large part with modeling correct pronunciation.  If working in escuelas, volunteers will be the sole English teacher.  They will not teach alone (there will always be a teacher in the room with you to assist with management of the class), however they will be much more in charge of English education than the general class teacher.

Volunteer will work from 7:30 to 12:30 or 1:30, depending on the school.  After classes end, you will eat lunch for free with the teachers of the school.  In addition to teaching children, volunteers will almost certainly be asked to teach the teachers in the afternoons.  When signing on to TEV, you are only obligated to teach the children.  However, if you wish to stay at the school for an extra hour and teach the teachers, it would be helpful.  It will be up to you.

How are the conditions of the schools?

Our project is based in Chimborazo, the poorest province in Ecuador, however there is a

wide range of diversity as far as what the schools have and are without.  Classrooms will be equipped with white boards, students will have desks, children will have notebooks and pencils.  In colegios, students will have the Ecuador-made English textbook, Our World Through English, which volunteers will help main English teachers teach from effectively.  In escuelas, the students may or may not have textbooks, but they will most likely have notebooks.  If the students do not have textbooks, the volunteer will be able to find a multitude of lesson plans and English language basics online.  It would not hurt to bring a basic English textbook, or download the one listed under the packing list in the Preparation and Arrival page.  If you wish to make copies of a worksheet, the students will most likely have to pay for their copy, therefore we advise that you try to plan activities that they can complete in their notebook, or textbook workbook, if possible.

A typical workday for a TEV teacher:

Your alarm goes off at 5:30.  Naturally, you press snooze once, but by 5:45, you know it’s time to levantarse.  Let’s say you live in Riobamba, but teach in a smaller, more rural town.  You quickly drink a cup of tea and eat bread with cheese, then throw some clothes on and walk out the door.  You have to catch the bus that will get you there by 6:30.  At around 7:15, you reach your school and converse with the teachers there (depending on your level of Spanish- you may kind of just be with them, trying to pick up words you can, but sometimes just zoning out).  At 7:30, the children head to their classrooms, and you head to yours.  Let’s say you’re working in an escuela (elementary school) on this hypothetical day.  You will begin in one of the classrooms, probably teaching for around 45 minutes.  You may begin each class with a greeting song, a classroom chant, or a fun review, but after a few minutes, you and the children get to work with the teaching.  Before you know it, you look at your clock and see that you need to wrap things up and head to the next class.  At around 10:30, the school takes a half hour recess, giving you a chance to buy a 10 cent chocobanana and be swarmed (lovingly) by the students.

By 11:00, you are back in a classroom.  At 12:30, the last bell rings and you are done working with kids for the day.  (If in a colegio, school lets out at 1:30).  You spend about thirty minutes eating lunch with the teachers (soup, rice with some meat and a little bit of salad, and juice- in that order), then you may end up giving them a lesson, or you may leave the school.

You get back into town around 2:15 and head home to plan your lessons for the next day, or just relax a bit.  Perhaps you pop into an internet cafe to see how life in your hometown is, perhaps you answer some emails from potential volunteers who are trying to feel out the organization, perhaps you go on a run, perhaps you spend time studying Spanish, perhaps you have agreed to giving some English lessons.  Later that night, you will probably eat a small dinner with your family, then maybe you’ll hang out with fellow volunteers or local friends.  But you’ll be amazed how tired you are by 8:30 pm… the children are very fun, but also very draining, plus you woke up quite early.  You hit the sack by 9:30 and sleep soundly, refueling your body in preparation for another exciting day of teaching.

Preparing for your English lessons

As you are preparing to come to Ecuador for anywhere from 4 months to 9 months, you will be busy saying goodbye to friends, obtaining your Visa, saving up money, perhaps practicing your Spanish, and maybe thinking about how you are going to do a good job teaching English will be the last thing on your to-do list.  You don’t have to extensively plan lessons before arrival (if you did, you would most definitely end up adapting your plans after reaching the schools), however, we do want you to think about the responsibility you will have to impart knowledge to the young people you will teach.

Before and during your time teaching in the Chimborazo province, buy or download a basic English textbook to understand the way the lessons are divided.  One thing the volunteer writing this found helpful was downloading dozens of easy children’s songs onto her computer before departing, then using the songs in the classroom (via ipod and speakers) when they fit into the lesson (ie. “Head and shoulders” when teaching on body parts).  Browse the web for English teaching resources.  Take some time to think about ways you can make your English lessons both fun and effective.  Keep the age group you will work with in mind- you should know this before you arrive.

Once you reach Ecuador, you will understand more fully what resources the school has and what is expected of you.  Honestly, we are a new organization and are trying to have more training and general resources available to our volunteer teachers, but right now, volunteers get to figure things out individually at their schools.  It is easy to arrive, full of energy and motivation, then within a month, lose steam and resort to only teaching out of the textbook and simply maintaining the students’ English levels.  We seek out volunteers who will remain motivated to inspire their students, and who will work diligently each day to increase their students’ English levels.  You will need to put effort into lesson planning, reflecting on how things went, and assessing the students.  Be prepared to spend some of your free time preparing lessons.

The living conditions are not those that one can know in North America or in Europe. You may not have always warm water or even water. Hygiene may be bad. You will live like the local people.  We hope that this kind of cultural transformation is what you are looking for.