Teaching English

The town was El Barril, a small fishing village on the Sea of Cortes around 5 hours away from any major city or paved road. We had driven on dirt roads through the beautiful mountains and desert of the Baja to get there. With LiveDifferent (formerly Absolute)ly no previous English teaching experience between any of us, Kristi, Nikki, Micah and myself found ourselves teaching English in a small school with about 12 kids including the teacher who joined in the English class as well. It was very interesting because our translator had left and we all know very little Spanish, for them it was more of an English immersion class. We had the class split up into three groups and each of us would go sit down with a group and help them with pronunciation. We started out by teaching them the alphabet which went very well although they had trouble with a few letters and getting their vowels mixed up between Spanish and English. We taught them basic colours which they were very good at even though every time they tried to say yellow it turned out as jello. We also taught them basic conversation and greetings, we had the kids come up to the front of the class and practice greetings with us such as hi, hello, how are you doing, what is your name. It was awesome just getting to know the kids who were all very willing to learn and seemed to be excited that we were there. At the end of the class we handed out small bags with treats and toothbrushes and toothpaste to all the kids, as well as some candy for good measure. I had always wanted to teach English in a foreign country and teaching it in the small village of El Barril was a once in a lifetime experience and one that I will never forget. (Josh)