Adventures in Honduras

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I have been a teacher for six years, and every year I love it even more than the previous year. For the past few years I have been teaching English as a Second Language at an elementary school in Des Moines, Iowa. Over 80 percent of my students were Spanish speakers, and I had the opportunity to work with the families of these students as well as with the students themselves and the community. When an opportunity to teach in Honduras I came up, I jumped at it. I flew down to San Pedro Sula to originally teach first grade, however, upon arrival, I was informed that I would be teaching kindergarten. I was also told that my students would be fluent in English. The first day of classes, however, I discovered that the word fluent in Honduras is used to describe those who can sing the ABC song. This means that the majority of my ESL students in the States would be considered advanced students!! The first few weeks were extremely difficult because not one of my 21 kindergarten students spoke a word of English. It was a crazy time in my life, but I feel as though I was well prepared for the situation as a result of teaching ESL for 3 years... no, not even teaching ESL for 3 years prepared me for this experience. Everything that I came down with... my experiences, my ideas about teaching, have been challenged and stretched. I came down confident about my abilities to teach, and was thrown into the lion's den as I discovered that what I had previously used in the States would not work in Honduras for a variety of different reasons. It has been a tough, yet brillant experience for me.

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