Let's try this again

My second invitation arrived this week:

TEFL Teacher Trainer (TEFL = Teaching English as a Foreign Language)
Nicaragua
U.S. Orientation: May 5-6
Training (in Nicaragua): May 7-July 18
Service: July 18, 2008 - July 16, 2010

I accepted it this morning.

I feel extremely lucky to still be going to Latin America on the exact same date as I was preparing for, but I can't pretend that I'm not disappointed to have gotten an invitation to the program I'd been hoping for for 6 months, only to have it taken away. It makes it hard to get really excited again. But I think my new assignment is great, and if I had decided not to do the Peace Corps, my plan was to teach English in Latin America anyway so here we are!

Now, what I'll be doing:
I think my title makes more sense as TEFL Teacher/Trainer, because I will be primarily teaching in a high school with a local English teacher (aka my Counterpart in Peace Corps terms) and only a small part of my time will be doing what I think of as teacher training, which is me talking to a bunch of school teachers. My job will be to help my counterpart improve their own English speaking ability and also to plan lessons together using more participatory activities rather than rote repetition or other methods that may not be as effective. This will involve me co-teaching classes of high school students that could be as large as 50 students! In my spare time I will most likely teach a class for adults in the community and do other projects according to my time and interest.

I'm nervous mostly about the size of the classes. That's a lot of kids! Last fall I co-taught a class of about 30 adult immigrants who were highly motivated and it was still a challenge to make sure everyone understood what was going on. I think it will be a big challenge, but I know I'll learn a lot from it and if I'm successful, then hopefully the kids I teach will have better futures ahead of them.

For anyone who's not quite sure where Nicaragua is, it's in Central America right in between Costa Rica and Honduras. I'll write more about my future home soon. I hope that maybe I'll get more visitors with my new location. Tourism is quickly becoming the biggest sector in Nicaragua's economy :)