I’m writing this as I sit in the airport waiting for my flight, and as I am sitting here, I just can’t believe how quickly three weeks went by. I still remember on the first day whenever we arrived in South America, I was just like “Wow. We’re in South America!” That felt like yesterday and I can’t believe that we’re sitting here now waiting for our flight back to North America. I already wrote about the seven things that I will miss about Chile in my last blog post, so for this one I thought I would write about what I have learned/taken from this experience.
Teaching in Chile has given me such a great perspective on teaching and how to overcome challenges that will certainly arise. I think the biggest thing I have taken away from this experience is the Spanish language. Before the trip I couldn’t speak any Spanish, and now I feel comfortable in communicating what I need/want. It’s not perfect and far from the best but it’s something that will definitely help me out in the future. This whole experience has taught me just how easy it is to learn a language. Often times people think that they have to take long courses and study thousands of flashcards for years to come. That stuff helps yes, but I know countless numbers of people who took foreign language in school but can’t speak at all. All you need to do is target commonly used verbs, basic vocabulary, and watch a few grammar videos and you should be good go! Or at least that is what worked for me! Also I think ego has a big part of the whole speaking experience and that people don’t speak because they are scared of being wrong. However, it says more about you if you try to speak the native language than rather expecting them to speak yours. This was why I thought it was so important for me to do some studying in my free time during the evenings. It also helped that I was immersed in the language for three weeks, People respect those who at least try to make a connection and I definitely wanted to be able to communicate without a translator.
It also taught me that it is challenging to teach in another country whenever the language is not your native tongue. This sounds obvious, but it really was eye opening because even in the English classrooms there is lots of Spanish going on. I have been thinking about teaching abroad in a Francophone country for several years now and now after actually doing it (but in Spanish) I see that it can be quite challenging. I think that I am up for the challenge though because although there may be some difficulties, the pros outdo the cons!
Another big thing that I took away from this trip was how differently education systems run. Whenever I was in Europe for a while on a foreign exchange program, I was able to see how the schools in France worked a little bit. Coming here to Chile, I see that they are run quite similarly! A big thing for me that I found different was how the teachers move and the students stay. In my experience with U.S. schools the teachers have their designated classroom and the students go to and from their different classes. This for me seems better because the kids get the opportunity to move around and change up their environment a little bit to better their learning. I also think that the student teacher relationship here is very neat! The teachers and students are very affectionate, as are most of the people too. I think that this sets up children in a loving environment and helps them to be more expressive and work harder in school.
Another big thing I learned is that I want to travel. I’ve always loved going to new places and experiencing new things, but after this trip I determined that I want to try and travel as much as possible in my lifespan and experience as many cultures, food, and people as I possibly can. Life is too short to live it living in the monotonous rut that most people create for themselves. I want to step out of that and live a life full of culture and traveling! Here’s to many more adventures!
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