Manic Monday!

You've probably worked out that this is not a picture of a manic monday at all. It's actually the ruins of the Mission at San Ignacio. San Ignacio is not far from where I'm staying, Posadas, the capital of the Misiones province. Misiones is so named after the large number of Jesuit missions set up around here (in the 17th century and later). Along with the 5 other volunteers who are here at the moment I visited San Ignacio on Saturday. Simon (from near London) is doing ecological work in the jungle, Agi (from Hungary - I hope the spelling is right) and Amy (from Australia) are helping out at the local orphanage, Emma and Olie (also from near London) are here to teach English like me.

So, Manic Monday! After the relaxing Saturday sightseeing and a very long lie (for me) until nearly 10 on Sunday morning the reality of teaching on Monday hit home. First I was given my timetable for the local municipal school. I think due mainly to strikes earlier in the year the core curriculum is being crammed in and English fits in around that so we have a very skewed timetable. 7:30am until 5:15pm on Monday (an hour and a quarter off for lunch) then much freer days for the rest of the week. School works in 2 shifts here. Some kids are in the morning - 7:30-11:45 and some are in for the afternoon 1pm-5:15. We are teaching at 7:30am three days of the week - muy temprano!

Some of the spaces in our timetable are being filled by helping out at other schools and institutes (I'll be going along with Emma and Olie to one of these later this afternoon). At the municipal school the classes we are teaching are year 5,6 and 7, which are 10-12 year olds and they are pretty much beginners but the standard seems to be quite mixed. I'm very glad that for the first 2 weeks it will be the three of us in each lesson. However, after that I'll be on my own.

I spent a bit of time on Sunday planning a lesson based around food for the four year 7 classes on Monday and went 10-pin bowling with the other guys in the evening to celebrate Agi's birthday.

Monday morning comes and I hadn't slept great - I guess you never do the night before something new and potentially hard and a 7:30 kick-off is brutally early. But as it was my first day Marcelo gave us a lift to the school so it wasn't so bad.

I'm staying with Marcelo and Veronica in Posadas. Veronica is the main co-ordinator of the volunteers here and has almost perfect English. Marcelo is Veronica's husband and speaks much less English so I can practice Spanish with him. The universal bloke language of Football is a great start! However, Marcelo's team River Plate are languishing in the second division of the Argentine league just now so hard times for River fans compared with their illustrious past.

Olie, Emma and I were dropped off and soon discovered that the local English teacher was off ill. So we'd be running the classes ourselves today. Ok, now I'm seriously glad it's not just me here!

My first introduction to teaching English as a foreign language was a great lesson in having lots of plan B's up your sleeve. The lesson I'd planned for the year 7s wasn't any use as they'd done the material before so just as well Olie and Emma had something in reserve on Places and directions. The most unexpected part of the morning was when one of the boys showed me a picture of Wayne Rooney from a computer game box and started calling me Rooney! News travels fast in a school and in almost every class since I have been Rooney!

The morning shift was incredibly tiring as with even three pairs of eyes its difficult to keep tabs on everyone. I guess they know we're only here for a few weeks, the real teacher is not there so there's less of an incentive not to misbehave for some. However, we got through it. The students really love games the best so we have to try to make up games that also involve a little learning. They like the numbers and colours bingo warmup but they went a little mad for the blindfold direct a classmate game. They are supposed to only use English directions (turn right, straight on, stop) but of course some cheating is inevitable!

Lunch would have been a welcome break if not for the stifling heat and soon enough we were back in for more year 7 places and directions. Except the after lunch lesson was a real graveyard shift. All three of us were toiling and the class were very quiet so it didn't rush by. Thankfully the next year 7s were a bit more up for it and just to round of the day on a high note the younger year 5s were an absolute joy. This lesson was about colours and animals and we had no lack of volunteers to mime out animals and draw on the board for pictionary.

So the day ended on a high note but it was a very long day and we, all three, were exhausted. I for one was a complete zombie in the evening. I gave Marcelo and Veronica a laugh though as after saying in Spanish correctly that I was very tired I went on to say Estoy muy caliente. I thought this meant I'm very hot...it does..but not in a heat sense - a sexy sense! That is good to know for future reference! Mucho calor from now on.

I managed to just about make it to 10pm before going to bed and managed a run this morning. Even at 7:30 when I set off it is mucho calor, and humid too but it would be just impossible to run later in the day.

Today we have a much lighter timetable and this mornings class was with a good local teacher so we were mainly helping the students out with an exercise they were doing. As I said we are helping out at an institute later so I'm interested to see what that'll be like. The remit is to help revise weather and food so  we are taking some bits of fruit and some flash cards that were conveniently left behind by a previous volunteer. I'm sure there'll also be time for a game or two of number and colour bingo!