Teaching English in Colombia

Cheryl spent May 4-12 presenting a one-week intensive English program to supplement the EFL (English as a Foreign Language) classes at a rural school near Bogota, Colombia. Here is how this opportunity developed:

In April, 2018, Rick and I visited PAOC global workers Darren and Patty McCrea in Bogota. Darren drove us all around the city and surrounding area, giving us a firsthand view of some of the ministry projects they were involved in. We had the pleasure of meeting several local pastors with whom Darren partners to bring help, resources, and the good news of the gospel to people in need. One of these pastors mentioned that the local high school principal frequently asked if it would be possible to get help with their English classes. I told Darren that yes, that was something I would be excited about pursuing. The principal was hoping that teachers could come for a week during which he would suspend other classes so that the greatest number of students could have supplementary English practice for at least 10 hours that week. We would prepare the lessons and Bible-based content was welcome. I stayed in touch with Darren and agreed to develop a program to pilot sometime in Spring 2019. I knew it would be a lot of work to write the curriculum, so I did not accept a teaching contract at the university for the winter semester. As I worked on the lesson plans and teaching materials, God was busy building a team of teachers from our church. As Rick mentioned in the previous post, the missions mobilization committee presented two short-term missions trip opportunities to our congregation and they rose to the challenge! By the time the dust settled, I had 4 professional teachers and 4 assistants, meaning that we could offer the program to 4 classes at a time.

Back in Colombia, Darren had three schools asking for our team. He decided to place us in a large high school that had welcomed previous teams to present purity seminars and gospel concerts. It was agreed that we would teach all of the grade 11 students (two 2-hour classes of 20 students each morning for each of our 4 teams = 160 students) in the first half of the day and offer another 2 hours of extension material in the afternoons to a maximum of 80 students who would sign up to come in their free time. We would also hope to spend some developmental time with the English teachers to help them enhance their classes going forward. Wow - we would be working hard!

The week's themes and verses

I designed the curriculum for this target group who were described as having strong English vocabulary and reading skills. I built the lessons around the theme of the five "I ams" of Jesus (I am the Bread of Life, the Light of the World, the Good Shepherd, the Vine, and the Way, the Truth and the Life).We would focus on speaking skills with lots of activities, games and role plays. I knew it would still be a shot in the dark as far as matching the curriculum with the ability and comfort level of students I had never observed, but hoped we could adapt it effectively. Then we got hit with a significant setback, which I'm told is very common in the missions world. 😓 Little more than a week before we were set to leave, the school contacted Darren to inform him that there had been an administrative change and the new principal was not prepared to free up the grade 11 students for the program. Darren kicked into high gear and did some fancy footwork to get us into one of the other schools that had initially expressed interest in our program. The principal and English teacher there worked hastily to re-organize their students' week to prioritize English classes, but we would now be teaching students from grades 7-11 who had much lower levels of English than the program was designed for. Plus we would be commuting an hour each way to get to the new location. Oh-oh . . .

2nd period grade 7-8 class

My assistant was my sister Daryl. We dressed as "twins" one day and had 2 sets of twins in our class!

We ended up with each team teaching 3 different 2-hour classes of varying abilities, attention spans, interest levels, and behavior issues. It was a challenge that the team stepped up to, but we had to jettison many parts of the curriculum and come up with alternate activities. After teaching for 6 hours and driving for 2, we had to get supper made, eaten and cleaned up and then debrief and revamp the lessons for the next day. We worked until 9 or 10 o'clock most nights, and on any given night, half of us slept little. So it was a grueling schedule, but God showed us that He will give us the energy and the mindset to do His work amidst unexpected circumstances that we may be unprepared for. I had to get over the disappointment of not being able to implement the program the way I had planned and see hours of work go unused. One of my colleagues commented that it is often hardest to adapt your own curriculum. Another of my team pointed out that she could see how God had clearly answered my prayers to guide my lesson planning to fit the needs of the students only He knew we would be serving. Because I had planned supplementary activities for the proposed afternoon sessions, we had options to pick and choose from that we could more easily simplify for the medley of core classes we ended up teaching. I was overwhelmed with thankfulness for the strong team God had brought together. We had gifted middle years teachers who knew how to work with less mature and disruptive "tweens" and teachers who were more relaxed in ''going with the flow" and more comfortable with chaos than I was. In the end, we touched the lives of over 200 students, and although we may never know the fruit that comes of it, we trust that God used us as part of His plan to build positive and caring relationships between the school, the local pastor, and Darren's ministry.

My awesome team except one who was ill this day

The English teachers and principal were very grateful for our efforts and said they had learned a lot from observing our teaching strategies. Some of the students couldn't believe we would come from Canada "for free" to help them, and all learned more about who Jesus is and how His love motivates us to love others. I think I can speak for the team in saying that God also accomplished a personal work in each of us as we stepped out in obedience and allowed Him to use both our strengths and our weaknesses to serve His Kingdom.

From left: Mercedes, our translator and caregiver; Carlos, head English teacher; Cheryl at the school we served in the "San Francisco" district of Colombia

Looking ahead, I anticipate that God will use this curriculum as a base for future teaching opportunities in the Latin American region and beyond. It was a delight for me to be able to build a program with spiritual content that makes learning English fun and exposes students to the hope that is in Jesus. I am encouraged by the fact that right now, the lesson plans I created when we were in Tegucigalpa, Honduras in Nov. 2016 are being used to tutor high school students.

We plan to stay close to home this summer and fall, but stay tuned for news of our next deployment in 2020.

Cheryl

It certainly wasn't all hardship - our home for the week was a peaceful retreat for pastors in the mountains south of Bogota, complete with a lovely pool which we made use of.