CONGRATULATIONS to all the Challengers on our first six Charity Challenges of 2011, biking from Guatemala to Honduras, the inaugural Nicaragua Volcano Challenge, Brazil's Chapada Diamantina Challenge , Guatemala's first Caribbean Kayak Challenge, Perú´s Cerani Pass and Ecuador's Volcano Challenge. Nicaragua's second volcano Challenge is set for 3rd-6th November and the third Guatemala Volcano Challenge dates are set for 27th November -2nd December.

Click on the following for our most recent official project reports for Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, Ecuador, Perú and Brazil.

Sunday, August 17, 2008

New teaching English program in Guatemala


The new GVI Phoenix Teaching English Project, run by Neil McMillan, who holds a Diploma in Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages (Trinity dip. TESOL) and includes an extensive GVI Introduction to TEFL Training course for the volunteers, has started in earnest in Itzapa and Santa Maria.

Over 50 kids across both schools are now getting regular, structured English lessons from Neil and the first two volunteers, Lisa and Liz.

The project involves delivering specialised EFL training to the volunteers, enabling them to plan and deliver their own lessons, as well as preparing the children for the (now mandatory) English component of their national exam.

Broken down into bare statistics, Liz and Lisa completed over 16 hours of training sessions, 37 hours of classroom observation and classroom assistance, 15 hours each of observed teaching, 26 hours each of unobserved teaching and 25 hours of reflection and assisted planning; this doesn't include the hours of planning they have done on their own time. They also fitted in 40 hours each of one-on-one Spanish tuition!

More importantly, the kids seem to be enjoying what to them is a new approach to learning English, with an emphasis on developing all the skills of the language in a fun and sometimes physical format.

Sponsorship from back home in Scotland, as well as funding from the volunteers’ contributions, have enabled us to purchase new chairs and desks, folders and paper for the kids, and a variety of books and resources to set the project up for the future.

Whether it’s the Santa Maria beginners getting their mouths round ‘Hello’ for the first time, or the older Itzapa teenagers developing their grammar, vocabulary and communication skills, it’s been a challenging but highly enjoyable ride so far.

Huge thanks to Liz and Lisa for being the pioneering volunteers on our new Teaching English program and we hope the upcoming volunteers maintain the same level of professionalism in the future.
Now, one more time kids: ‘How are you?’ ‘I am very well!’
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How does GVI Phoenix make a difference?

The following film was made in Guatemala, though the message is the same across all GVI Phoenix projects