Teaching English in a Chilean public school

After a week-long orientation in Santiago where we learnt about the Chilean education system, TEFL theory, Chilean culture, lesson planning and classroom management, I was sent to Quillota, where I would spend the next eight months. Quillota is a small city located in central Chile's Valparaíso Region, and surrounded by huge plantations of avocado trees. There, thanks to Couchsurfing, I found an incredibly nice family that hosted me for free for a couple of weeks! They were so nice I ended up renting a room in their lovely house for the remaining of my stay.

The house was located in a rural area, outside of town. It had a swimming pool, a barbecue, a secondary house rented to six university students, hammocks, a vegetable garden, fruit trees, and lots of animals (a dog, cats, chickens, turtles...). Needless to say it was quite a change from my Parisian life: exactly what I was looking for. The peaceful atmosphere that prevailed there left a strong impression on me.

Andrea and her son Luciano were incredible hosts. They took care of me, showed me around, cooked delicious meals for me, took me to football games, to the beach, to parties, introduced me to their friends, to their culture and their lifestyle. I will forever be grateful to them as they truly made me feel a part of the family.

The school I got assigned to was Colegio de Niñas Canadá. Like its name suggests, it is an all-girls school. There, I taught to grades 5th to 11th. I had my own classroom which also served as the music room. The various Chilean teachers I had the pleasure to work with divided their classes in 2 groups and would send half of their students to my classroom so I could teach them for 45 minutes, while they would teach the other half. Then, we would switch. This method allowed us to teach to smaller groups (15 to 25 students) which was a lot more efficient as students were less distracted and teachers could spend more time focusing on each girl.

Some classes were amazing, filled with students that were eager to learn a new language, while others were more chaotic. Indeed, as we were told to make our lessons fun and filled with games and entertaining activities, some of the students took my classes as the recreational part of their day. They often took advantage of the fact that I was a foreigner, didn’t speak perfect Spanish and was not allowed to punish them in any way. I almost wanted to quit at some point, after yet another tough class. Nevertheless, I remembered why I chose to apply to this program : I wanted to positively impact the lives of kids from underprivileged backgrounds. Therefore, I didn't give up and it was definitely the right choice as it ended up being a very enriching experience. I learnt a lot, definitely became a better teacher and hopefully managed to demonstrate the importance of speaking English to some of my students as well as the impact it could have on their life.

If you want to learn more about the program and my experience, check this blog post out : https://www.teachercharles.com/post/english-opens-doors