Caught Me Slacking

29-September-2019, Sunday, 7:52 PM CDT

     (Me seeing you, Constant Reader, and quickly turning the corner to avoid your eye.)
     "Not so fast!" says you, Constant Reader. "Where have you been the last two weeks?"
     There is no excuse. I just neglected to post. All great writers have talent, but the best have discipline as well. I need more discipline as a writer. But it's just so easy to make excuses for ourselves, isn't it?
     I can't write today because I'm too tired or because it's too much work or because nobody's going to read it anyway, so what's the point?
     Nada de esto, por favor.
     It's a classic yet never passable excuse, but the last two weeks have been, you guessed it, busy. And think of it this way--if I'm not blogging, it's probably because I'm out doing Mexican things. Take two weeks ago for example. It was El Quince de Septiembre, the Mexican equivalent of the Fourth of July. I went to watch some students dance in a neighboring pueblo (town). The girls wore long dresses that flowed in waves of blue and pink, the boys all white with colorful ribbons for ties around their neck. It was a dancing show of all ages, from kindergarten to college. Then in another pueblo we screamed then names of famous Mexican patriots during El Grito (The Scream). It was one-thirty by the time I got home. You expected me to blog then?
     "'This will be a weekly blog,' you said. 'It's going to be about language teaching and learning,' you said. So what's your excuse for last week?"
     Let me think...oh yeah. Last weekend I was in Puebla visiting Fes. Hadn't seen him in nine years. You expected me to blog Sunday night from his house in the city? Ignore my hosts just to satisfy your curiosity?
     (Silence from you, Constant Reader, as you mercifully withhold further challenge.)
     Ok. Let's just move on to this past week, shall we?
     (Obstinate silence continues.)
     You'll get over it...but thanks for giving me flak.

     There has been a lot of rain this week. It rained all day today. I didn't feel like leaving my room but did anyway, as I accepted an invitation to a birthday party for one of my students; the same student, in fact, to whom I endeavored to explain carnal to, remember? The rain didn't stop us from enjoying some barbacoa (goat), elotes (corn), and pastel (cake) to celebrate his birthday. The set-up was a couple big tarps rigged up just off the road outside Tepexi. Nothing fancy, but it kept us dry. I continue to be welcomed by families here as if I was one of their own.
     In class this week we learned numbers, time, and days. There's a fun game called Fizz Buzz that is my go to for numbers. It's akin to Hello, Governor if you're familiar, and you can find out more about it here. To get students interested and motivated to learn how to give and ask for the time, I played Rock Around the Clock and danced around the class for a few minutes. And for days I used one of the most lasting language teaching strategies--listening to music. Students had to fill in the blanks to The Cure's "Friday I'm in Love" in hopes of solidifying the days of the week in their memories. I still remember parts of the German song Professor Joerg Meindl played for us at Leb Val. I haven't used German, in earnest, for ten years, but I remember that Peter Fox had twenty kids and a pretty wife in his song "Haus am See". Hopefully the students will remember the days of the week for our second exam, which most will be taking this week.
     What else? I've been playing a lot of basketball, and it's been really funny. Learning a new sport is similar to learning a new language. In the beginning, I was not very good. In fact, I was frustratingly bad. But little by little, poco a poco, with consistent practice, desire to learn, and refusal to give up, I began to improve. Now I'm kinda ok at speaking Spanish and playing basketball. I always hold myself to a (sometimes) unreasonably high standard, but it's because I want to be good, I want to be competent and credible. As a lifelong learner, I need to learn how to recognize small gains and believe they are adding up.
     The highlight of last week was the welcoming of new students to TEC. They were called Baby Raptors, and we held a sort of orientation for them. I was involved in all sorts of fun games like human train and extreme musical chairs. I tore a hole in my jeans after spinning around an empty bottle several times and diving for an empty chair during this one. We danced to mariachi and ate pozole, threw water balloons at each other and tossed giant dice. Only a month and a half at-site, and I already feel like a member of the community.
     And now for the random wrap-up--in half-court basketball here, we don't "take it back" if we rebound a missed shot by the other team, we just put it right back up no matter who shot it, on Thursday my good friend Carmelo, another guy, and I won six straight games to five in a rotation of three teams, at the end of some work days my counterpart Hugo and I stay late and have a bilingual chat, he in English and me in Spanish, the topics get pretty deep--from God to reality and the universe to reincarnation, I'm proud to finally be code-switching (going from one language to another) and can do so easily in my mind and on my phone keyboard lol, I saw my first tarantula the other night at basketball, about the diameter of coffee mug, the other night I sang karaoke which is insanely useful for pronunciation and vocab-building, not to mention super fun, my clothes have been hanging out on the line all day in the rain, and I don't even care hahaha, they'll dry tomorrow.
     Ok, friends, Romans, countrymen, that's all for now. Check back next week for--
     "Next week? Are you sure?"
     Callate, CR. Yes, check back next week for another post, and if it's not here, just be patient with me, ok? It's probably because I'm out trying to be a Mexican somewhere.
     Have a good week, America.

¿Que Onda, Carnal?

Sunday, 8-September-2019, 12:21 PM CDT

Hola y buenos días de Tepexi. Today I woke up at seven and was in the pew for quarter of
eight. I missed church last week, but God forgave me because He has to. It was a typical
Catholic ceremony with a lot of kneeling, call and response, chanting, candles, incense,
singing, and communion. I haven’t attended many Catholic churches but have spelt
spiritually aroused during all of my visits. People ask if I’m Catholic and don’t seem
disappointed when I tell them I am not but that I believe in the same one true God that they
do. In addition to the vanilla, in-house ceremony, I attended another, more active one earlier
in the week.

I am trying my best to integrate and become a Mexicano Guero (White Mexican), so I
accept a lot of invitations. I often accept them without fully understanding their details and
what they entail. Such was the case late last week when I was invited to a procession.
Initially, I thought we’d be going an hour away to serve food to poor people. I accepted the
invitation reluctantly because of my vague understanding and the fact that I’d be missing
basketball practice (I need a lot of that). Gracias a Dios, it was an unexpectedly successful
outing.

On the day of the mystery adventure I was working in my office when one of my students
came in and told me it was time to go. I learned then of his relationship to the woman that
had invited me, his mom, a librarian at TEC. We trudged up the long, steep hill toward
el centro and waited in a family business for his uncle to arrive with the truck. Before long,
I was crammed in the middle backseat between two people, and the bed was filled with
more people and a bunch of food and equipment. I was told it was an hour ride.

I don’t know where we’re going, I’m going to be sitting cramped like this for at least an
hour, we’re gonna be out there all night, I have work to do. What did I get myself into?
Don’t hate, integrate.

We left Tepexi, a town of about 5,000 people, and ventured into el campo, the countryside.
The ride was beautiful, with mountain vistas, fields of corn, and primitive country houses.
The ride was also quick because the student and I were deep in a bilingual conversation.
He taught me the Mexican Spanish word carnal (car-NAL) which basically means good friend.
Carnal. In English, it means something more than friends ; ) 

Are you gonna try and teach carnal to this nineteen year old, basic level English speaker? 

Yep. His grandmother, aunt, and uncle won’t know what we’re talking about lol.

His knowledge needed to be scaffolded before he could understand carnal. He first
thought it was something animals had, like, you know. 

He needs to know it’s an adjective. Does he know the parts of speech?

Turns out he needed a recap on nouns vs. verbs vs. adjectives, and he soon identified
each in the sentence, “That is a fat dog.”

“Carnal is a type of desire,” I told him, but he didn’t know that word, and I didn’t know
it in Spanish. After consulting the handy-dandy Google Translate, we bridge our
knowledge gap with deseo. 

So now he knows that it’s an adjective, and it’s a type of desire, now I need to make
it relevant to him.

“When one person really, REALLY likes another person and wants to...you know,
he or she has carnal desires.”

The subject changed, as they do, but considering his ohs and head nods, I think he
obtained a basic understanding of the word. It’s nearly impossible to tell, though, which
is a difficult part of teaching. How do we measure what anyone “knows”?

Anyway, the ride wasn’t all that bad and shorter than I expected. We drove on rough
roads to an isolated part of the country. Along the way we saw fellow followers walking,
donkeys tied up and observing us curiously while chewing cud, and heard rather than
saw bottle rockets exploding well before the reached the heavens. Utility poles were
strung with white and yellow pennants, holey, allowing the wind to penetrate their thin,
flimsy bodies. About 100 people waited there, and I recieved looks of intrigue and
curiosity as the only guero there. Soon four men approached, shouldering a litter of
flowers and led by un padre. We walked and sang songs for a couple miles to the local
iglesia.

Here the devout took part in a two or three hour long ceremony while others,
including me, flocked to the play/cooking area away from the mass. Here I stirred a
kettle of pig parts and talked a lot to the curious, smart, ambitious ten year old brother
of my student. I met Santiago, who spoke a little English and celebrated his knowledge
a lot with me. He pointed in all directions and told me which major cities would be
encountered if we went as the crow flies. Given this orientation, he asked me to point to
China, Russia, Los Angeles, my home, and many other places. It was a proud time for
me because he wanted to know many English equivalents, and I was able to translate
for him. Poca a Poca is proving true, like I knew it would. What I thought was going to
be a drag ended up being a great experience. Classic cultural immersion.

Another week in the books, so let’s wrap it up randomly. Many of the English
-tion words translate easily into -cion words in Spanish (e.g. information and información),
yesterday I my way to surprise Hugo Dos, remember the archaeologist?, I encountered
him in the street and we started our search for my bike, in class we have our first exam
this week (we’ll review using Give or Take Jeopardy which involves more risk and
excitement than regular Jeopardy), I play too much MTG Arena (but at least it’s in
Spanish), I had my first scorpion the other day! First ever seen outside of a petshop,
he was eating a spider (I killed him with the ole Merell), and, finally, we have our exam
this week because a week from today is September 15th, the Mexican equivalent to the
4th of July, and I can’t wait for the celebration. 

Thanks for reading. See you next week.

My first scorpion, eating a spider :)

Giant moth, 10 peso coin is about the size of a US quarter

Cool shot during the procession

The beauty of Mexico

Post procession

Speaking a New Language Is Hard

Sunday, 1-September-2019, 7:44 PM CDT

Yo yo and greetings from Mexico! Things have been going wonderfully here.
The second week of classes at TEC Tepexi is in the books, and we’re ready to move
onto the third. I’m going to write about a topic I’ve been thinking a lot about--talking.
We do it every day--if we’re able--and it’s the alpha of the four areas of language
(sorry, Writing, but it’s true, I still love you the best). We talk to our friends, we talk
to children, we talk to our family, our pets, ourselves, our coworkers, strangers, people
we don’t want to talk to, people who are dead and plants to help them grow. We talk
A LOT, and that’s great for an ESL learning community--if you can get people to talk
English.

My students speak a lot of Spanish in English class. Initially, I was frustrated by this.

This is English class. Why aren’t they speaking English exclusively?

The answer was simple and twofold--they don’t know enough English to say what
they want to say, and they like to talk. People gon talk yo, so as ESL teachers we have
to capitalize on this human propensity. 

There are amazing ELTs (English language teachers) out there who don’t speak
another language, but that experience would be valuable. I remember during PST
when we had our language and culture classes. They were by far my favorite part of
training and the most useful. I was afraid to speak Spanish. I didn’t have the words or
grammar to say what I wanted to say, but I spoke anyway. It rarely made grammatical
sense, and even today my sentences are formed using my own rules for Spanish
(largely derived from English) and not the prescribed ones. But my utterances
almost always convey the messages I want them to. If you want to learn a new
language, or anything, don’t be afraid to make mistakes--that’s where learning
happens. Now I need to instill this intel in my students. I’m expecting success from
the beginning, which is a HUGE flaw of thought. The students and I have, I think,
two years together, and we will refer to the title of this blog often.

So, how can I get my students to start speaking English? Man, I wish I knew,
but, unfortunately, I forgot my vials of English Ilixir in the states, so I guess I’ll have to
do it the ole fashioned way, which is...uh...I don’t know. Seriously. The silent period,
or in this case the frequent use of native language period, is totally common, and
even linguists don’t know exactly why language learners are often reticent and
reluctant. They have a pretty good idea though. 

Students need to be comfortable, and most are in our learning communities--I think.
And they also need to be confident. If they say something that I understand, even if it’s
not “correct,” I say, “Very nice!”. They need opportunities to practice the other areas
of language, in addition to speaking. I need to arrange ways for them to practice with
each other, or me, by giving them the phrases they need. And like all learners, they
need the discipline and desire necessary to start thinking in English and producing
utterances in English. 

I’m determined to see them all succeed. I knew my writing would take a backseat
while I was here, and I was ready for that. In addition to the Peace Corps’s goals, I
have two of my own--become a better teacher AND a fluent Spanish speaker. If I work
hard toward both every day, willing to make mistakes and learn from them, I will be
successful at the end. Just like HTD said, “If one advances confidently in the direction
of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with
a success unexpected in common hours.” 

Ok. Now for the random wrap-up. I’m integrating well into my community. I play for
the TEC Tepexi basketball team of students and teachers on Saturdays. I also play
volleyball in a nearby pueblo, San Juan, on Thursdays. After my clothes go through
the washer, I have to wring the soap from them using a washboard. When given the
option between two exam dates, students chose Thursday the 12th over Friday the
13th. Spanish uses one verb for both wait and hope (esperar), which is cool.
Today there was an election for mayor in my pueblo, La Colonia, before which a little
town hallish event took place. Also, a couple drops of mezcal works magic for the
digestive system. Things I miss from home: my family and friends, June, Fall :(,
high school and college football, Screamers, craft beer, and camping down the river.
But it’s all good. That’s all for now because cousin Korah just said to me,
“¡Vamos a comer, Kory!” Ah the beauty of speech.

Till next time. Thanks for reading.

A butterfly on my favorite type of flower here. 

My host brother Miguel and I 

Robby Porto, his host mom Titi, Miguel, and I after swearing in 

Coolest cathedral in Puebla City, forget what it's called