Sparing you the nitty-gritty, getting here was kind of exhausting, but honestly not too bad. It is impressive to me still that I spent 3 days accomplishing a trip that could take 10 hours, but whatever, not important. I stepped off the plane at El Dorado Airport around 10:30AM and ran the customs gambit in Bogota in record time - nothing to declare and they didn't even want to x-ray my bags. With that, I stepped out into the ... um, slightly tepid Bogota July. It's cooler and less humid here than it is in New York, so honestly, the climate is a welcome change from the summer I'd been having in Albany. "So it goes."
For several months now I've been coordinating via email with Paola Caro, and she met me at the airport. Though we have previously only corresponded in Spanish, it turns out that Paola and all the staff at the university's Oficina de Relaciones Internacional y Interinstitucional (ORII) speak English excellently, which has been a blessing, since my Spanish is just as poor as I thought it was, perhaps even poorer. We arrived on campus and dropped my bags off in what amounts to a hotel room (very nice accommodation, but definitely short-term) and I then proceeded to make a poor impression on every person I met, including the director of ORII and the President of the university. I have since thankfully been given chances to change those initial impressions, but it was a bit depressing to be paraded through an office of professionals while exhausted from three days of travel that included sleeping six hours in an airport, plus I was still dressed in my shorts and t-shirt. I managed a nap late in the afternoon, had the first thing I could find for dinner (it happened to be kebab), and in a moment of good fortune arrived back at my room just as some other international occupants were heading out for the evening. Cue social life, we went downtown and had a couple drinks in a very curious little bar and found our way home around 1 AM.
The day after I arrived was July 20, coincidentally the Colombian national holiday celebrating Independence. Turns out that isn't a huge deal here the way it is in the U.S., but it still means all the businesses are closed and downtown is a street-fair zoo. Since there wasn't anything urgent to take care of, I made use of Independence by going for a walk. Six hours later, I was confident that I was near the university again, but I just couldn't seem to find it. Finally I climbed halfway up the mountains that border the city so I could get a look down, and lo and behold, I had been within about five blocks of the place. Sore in the feet and pretty well pooped, I slept away the late afternoon, ventured out for a quick dinner, and retired early.
Sunday was a relatively uneventful day, but Monday was a doozy. Monday I went to CLUS (Centro de Lenguas de Universidad de la Salle) and met my new boss! Yep, I have a boss. Since my service here in Colombia will be teaching English at Utopia, and since Utopia is a branch of Universidad LaSalle, and since CLUS is the department of the university specifically in charge of the language requirement for students, el jefe (the boss) at CLUS is also my boss. So, for the next 3 weeks or so I am living in Bogota and working at CLUS to learn the pedagogy of the university as it relates to teaching English. Specifically (for you teachers out there), CLUS requires its instructors to use a task-based approach that emphasizes communicative ability for all lessons, as opposed to grammar-based or any other pedagogical systems.
Since my students at Utopia are technically students of LaSalle, they are required to meet the same standards of English (as a required set of courses) as all other students. To ensure all students are graded properly for their level, LaSalle has designed its own standardized tests, and I have to be properly trained on how to administer them (from such details as keeping the tests in a locked room to how to properly assess the oral exam). This amounts to two real-world tasks for the next 3 weeks. Very daunting, and exciting, hands-on training in regard to teaching, as well as very dull and difficult watching of previously recorded lectures on such thrilling topics as how to use technology in the classroom and fairness in examinations. But, my new boss is cool, I can browse the web while I "watch" videos, and at least I'm not just spending my day trying to figure out how I should be spending my day. I hope to come out of these three weeks with a greater sense of confidence in my teaching abilities and a much more practical understanding of the expectations for a language teacher at Universidad LaSalle. Did I mention I'm also going to be taking a Spanish class? Thank goodness for that.
Though there have been other minor events throughout this week, none are particularly worth recounting at this time, particularly since I'm really excited to write my next post, which will happen as soon as this one is finished.
Ciao!
Sunday was a relatively uneventful day, but Monday was a doozy. Monday I went to CLUS (Centro de Lenguas de Universidad de la Salle) and met my new boss! Yep, I have a boss. Since my service here in Colombia will be teaching English at Utopia, and since Utopia is a branch of Universidad LaSalle, and since CLUS is the department of the university specifically in charge of the language requirement for students, el jefe (the boss) at CLUS is also my boss. So, for the next 3 weeks or so I am living in Bogota and working at CLUS to learn the pedagogy of the university as it relates to teaching English. Specifically (for you teachers out there), CLUS requires its instructors to use a task-based approach that emphasizes communicative ability for all lessons, as opposed to grammar-based or any other pedagogical systems.
Since my students at Utopia are technically students of LaSalle, they are required to meet the same standards of English (as a required set of courses) as all other students. To ensure all students are graded properly for their level, LaSalle has designed its own standardized tests, and I have to be properly trained on how to administer them (from such details as keeping the tests in a locked room to how to properly assess the oral exam). This amounts to two real-world tasks for the next 3 weeks. Very daunting, and exciting, hands-on training in regard to teaching, as well as very dull and difficult watching of previously recorded lectures on such thrilling topics as how to use technology in the classroom and fairness in examinations. But, my new boss is cool, I can browse the web while I "watch" videos, and at least I'm not just spending my day trying to figure out how I should be spending my day. I hope to come out of these three weeks with a greater sense of confidence in my teaching abilities and a much more practical understanding of the expectations for a language teacher at Universidad LaSalle. Did I mention I'm also going to be taking a Spanish class? Thank goodness for that.
Though there have been other minor events throughout this week, none are particularly worth recounting at this time, particularly since I'm really excited to write my next post, which will happen as soon as this one is finished.
Ciao!
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