Tuesday, July 27, 2010

Chilean Ministry Training




July 26 Mon - 9am Training location at the Hotel Gran Plaza at Huerfanos Avenue in the business district of Santiago center.

Agenda: Welcome, Personal Presentations, Visa Process, break, Chilean Educational System, Learning a Foreign Language, Lunch, Lesson Planning.

Our presenters are from the Ministry (MINEDUC) and former volunteers. The opening began with introductions from the Santiago coordinators who will be our contact persons here. Although we will have a Regional Coordinator contact person who will actually be the first line of contact.

After a couple of hours it was break time. Adjacent to the conference sits a cafe-style lounge where we were served delicious coffee with cookies and fresh juice. Once again back into the conference room; the training continued until 12:30pm. Oh, we were given a voucher worth 2500 Chilean pesos for our lunch stipend. SWEET...

Lunch for today was 2hours long which was a real surprise. Three of us (Hannah, Ryan and I) walked to a nearby naturalist cafe. I loved the natural sandwiches consisting of avocado, egg, tomato, shredded carrots, a speacial dressing and other veggies on wheat bread. I accompanied my healthy delight with mint tea (real leaf in the cup).

What did I learn today?

English class is in blocks of 90 minutes. There are two models: the Flexible and the Divide/Split. In the Split, the volunteer takes one half the class for 45 min. then switches with the other half of class for the second 45 minutes. The class teacher gives grammar/writing while the volunteer teaches in another classroom.


The Flexible model- volunteers are encouraged to use this model for the following reasons. In this model, the volunteer pulls out of class some 10 students at a time to give them English instruction in another classroom. The following week, more students are pulled out by the volunteer until half the class is with her/him. In this manner the volunteer would work on knowing the students, class management, and reaching all 40-50 students.

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