Video: English Day at Nueva Esperanza

Recently, it was English Day at Nueva Esperanza. A day filled with speeches, performances, and activities intended to get the students interested and excited about learning English. With an array of awesome musical numbers and literary recitations, the students showed they have what it takes to make Teacher Mike smile.

Even yours truly addressed the entire school to tell them why it is important to learn English.

This time, I actually took videos of the goings on, splicing them together in this video chronicling the day.

Enjoy!

Teacher Mike

I’ve had quite a few different jobs throughout my life.

These have ranged from selling shoes to pissed-off soccer moms at Sports Authority and managing money at the CoHo to delivering flags for Nancy Pelosi and arguing with douchey reporters about why they should talk to my client; however, none of these could have possibly prepared me for what would prove to be my greatest challenge yet—teaching children a foreign language.

In other words; teaching is really, really hard.

Since the students at Nueva Esperanza knew little to no English, I decided to make my first lesson as basic as possible—teaching the two phrases, Hello, my name is and What is your name?

As I entered my first class, a potent mixture of adrenaline and caffeine powered through my veins. When my students saw me enter, they erupted in excited Spanish chatter, a few identifiable Teacher Mike! ’s strewn in here and there.

After my Colombian co-teacher helped me calm the class to what passes for quiet in Colombian classrooms, I wrote TEACHER MIKE on the board.

Asking for volunteers.

Turning to the class, just as I had done in the courtyard a week before, I pointed to myself and slowly said, “My name is Teacher Mike. Tee-chur Mike.”

Based on the look they gave me, I might as well have been speaking Klingon. In the dumbfounded silence, crickets could have heard crickets.

My co-teacher helped me to act out a basic introduction, using the two phrases. After we did it a few times, I hoped my students realized I was attempting to teach them a language originating on Earth, not Planet Qo’noS.

I asked for two volunteers to come up in front of the class. Again, there was confusion. Finally, the students got the idea and I chose two students to come forward. I explained for them to display what they had learned by using the phrases on each other, pointing to the board to indicate what I wanted.

Doing my best not to lose it.

“Ask, What is your name,” I said to one student, pointing at the other.

More figurative crickets.

“Repeat after me,” I said, “What is.”

“Wot iss,” the student said.

“Your name,” I continued.

“Yoa nah-may,” the student repeated.

“Naym,” I emphasized.

“Naym,” the student said.

Close enough, I thought.

The other student looked at me, smiling but without a clue as to what to do next.

I gestured to the board and said, “Now you say, My name is…”

“Mai nahm is…” the student began, hesitating, “Teacher Mike!”

FML, I thought.

Doing my happy dance when they finally got it.

After I corrected the students, I had more pairs come up to practice. Eventually, the students seemed to catch on and started using their own names instead of mine.

When the class ended, I gathered my things and moved on to the next classroom to do it all over again.

Aristotle once said, “Those that know, do. Those that understand, teach.”

After finishing my first week of teaching at Nueva Esperanza, I believe this maxim should be amended to include: “Those who teach, require cerveza.”

Lucky for me, in Colombia, beer only costs about 75 cents.

Nueva Esperanza

Driving up the hill

The underpowered engines of my host family’s Chevy Spark roared as they struggled to propel the vehicle up the steep incline towards the school. Jorge, my host father, maneuvered the Getz to avoid steamrolling a host of neighborhood dogs who slept haphazardly on the increasingly rugged road.

“These dogs never move,” he said as he carefully navigated through the mammalian minefield, “It’s like they don’t care if they live or die.”

I grimaced as we narrowly missed crushing the skull of a sleeping Scottish terrier. We turned a sharp corner and continued up a narrow road, passing pockets of scattered refuse as we chugged along like the Little Engine That Could.

Although we were technically still in Bogotá, the neighborhood could have fooled central Baghdad for one of its own. Poorly-constructed buildings and half-paved roads stretched out in all directions—a stark contrast to the booming modern buildings of Northern Bogotá.

As we reached the top of the hill, a structure came into view that could not have been more out of place. The modern building was tall and wide and had the words, NUEVA ESPERANZA written above the main entrance.

Nueva Esperanza.

New Hope.

My school assignment for the year.

Jorge dropped me off with my host mother, Maisa, who teaches music at the school. She took me in to meet with the principal and showed me around the facility. From one of the balconies I spotted another building across the street of similar construction.

View of the Primary School from the Secondary School

“What’s that?” I asked.

“The primary school,” Maisa replied.

Nueva Esperanza is really two schools in one; a primary school (elementary school) and a secondary school (middle/high school). The school suffers such a high demand for enrollment that they divide the day into two halves—there is a morning group that goes from 6:30 a.m. to noon and an afternoon group that goes from 1:00 p.m. to 6:30 p.m.

We left the secondary school building, crossed the street and approached the primary school’s gates. When I saw the primary school, the first thought that crossed my mind was prison. Hordes of chattering children loitered inside the main courtyard between thick, metal gates. Security guards patrolled the main entrance—to keep people in or out, I’m not completely sure.

Mis Estudiantes!

Passing through the gates, I felt four hundred pairs of little eyes catapult to me. I followed Maisa through the sea of uniformed little humans to meet the other English teachers milling about in the courtyard. Children looked up at me with awe as they wondered how a human being could possibly be so tall—I might as well have been André the giant to their curious eyes.

We stopped in the courtyard and Maisa introduced me to an English teacher I would likely be working with in the upcoming year. As if on cue, a company of third, fourth and fifth graders swarmed me from all sides. They asked me if I was from Los Estados Unidos (The United States), if I really was going to be their teacher and a barrage of other questions in Spanish I couldn’t comprehend.

I wasn’t supposed to let on that I knew Spanish, so I nodded, pointed to my chest and said, “My name is Teacher Mike. Tee-chur Mike.”

“Tee-chur Mike!” the kids screamed as they jumped up and down with glee, slapping each other on the back and smiling as they looked up at me.

Iron Man or Hannah Montana might as well have just landed in their courtyard.

At that moment, every doubt, every fear I had ever had about coming to Colombia was instantly extinguished. This was why I was here—why I had passed up a promotion, quit my job and traveled thousands of miles to a country where most Americans wouldn’t dare venture. The euphoric feeling generated by four hundred hopeful little souls was worth a thousand years of missed corporate paychecks.

Me with my students!

It was at that moment I realized I had more than just the power to teach English to the children of Nueva Esperanza. As corny as it sounds, I also had the power to give them hope—new hope.

And I promised myself I wouldn’t let them down.