If You Give A Palabra, She Will Appreciate the Support

On our first day of orientation, CIEE told us that working at Duoc would be a "singular experience." It certainly isn't the college I was prepared to teach at.

DuocUC is a sister school of the Universidad Catolica, one of the most prestigious universities in South America. 56,000 students attend technical and professional courses at 12 different campuses. These students are the students who didn't pass their PSU's (Chilean version of the SAT's), who don't have the money to attend a private university, or who are older students looking for a change in career.

Duoc's English program was only implemented ten years ago, but has grown incalcuably in that short time - our campus alone has 30 English teachers, 6 of which are TIPS (native speakers from abroad who were contracted either with Teach in Chile or CIEE's Teach Abroad program). Every student at Duoc needs to take at least 4 semesters of English in his or her time at the college.

Almost each and every student at Duoc would rather not.

It's not all of them, of course - of my 100 or so students, I'd say maybe 8 are actually interested in learning English, and maybe 40 more humor me by being good sports and playing along. I try to encourage these students as much as I can - by reading poetry they want to show me, by participating in improv rap contests with them, by giving them copies of Beatles lyrics, by sending them YouTube videos about famous American illustrators, and by coaching them for interviews with ski companies in Vermont...and, of course, by teaching them how to swear. They are kind to me in turn - they invite me to join them surfing on the weekends, they invite me to go drinking and dancing, they tell me about cool dive bars in the city, or where to get really cheap clothes or food, or why I should like Colo-Colo and not La U. They give me lessons on how to roll my "R"s, and laugh at me mercilessly when all I can manage is to purr like a demented kitten.

About 10 students make me want to rip out my hair and/or go at them with a pick-ax. They write me disrespectful emails, ask me every five seconds if class is over yet, and tell me that playing games is fome ("lame"). They text in class, or answer their phones if they ring; they make comments about how great my ass is; they walk in forty-five minutes late and need to take ten minutes to give everyone a hug or a high-five before finding their seats; or, as an entire class, they just don't show up. The worst has to go to my roommate, who told me that one of her girls pulled out a straightening iron, plugged it in, and began to straighten her hair halfway through class.

I've learned some great little tricks on how to make sure they hate their lives when they make mine a living hell.

For cell phones: answer them in front of the class. Answer them in English. This works especially well when Alvaro is talking to his girlfriend and you can practically hear her head spin as she spews pea soup out of her side of the phone when a girl answers instead of her boyfriend.

For chronically somewhat-late students: I have a roll of duct tape which I have taken to cutting into strips. The first student who entered the classroom is allowed to tape a strip to the forehead of the late student, write "LATE," and use a non-permanent maker to give them a moustache, or unibrow, or whatever they deem appropriate (within Catholic school policy, of course). The late student sits in the front of the class, facing them, for the entire class period. A crowd-pleaser. (I arm them with nail polish remover at the end of class so they can wipe away their embarassing face-paint.)

For hopelessly late students: now that I finally have keys to my rooms, I lock the door. If they start banging or whining "Profe, noooooooooooooooo, Profe, pleeeeeeeeeeeeeeease," I am armed with cold water and a high window from which to pour said cold water over their heads until they stop interrupting my class.

Embarassing them in a funny way lets you keep class respect while making sure the offending student learns their lesson. And they certainly do. When Duoc hands me a "singular experience," I'm prepared to dish one right back at 'em, and keep everyone laughing.