End of year show in the indigenous community

In the vast, inhospitable part of Paraguay known as the Chaco, there is a community of indigenous people who have been receiving training from FEISA staff this year. The purpose of the training has been to improve the standard of pre-school teaching in the community. It has involved several of the women committing themselves to the monthly training sessions and helping out in the pre-school class twice a week for 8 months.

At the end of October, the school invited FEISA staff to their end of year show of work. I was privileged to be one of the teachers who went. It was wonderful to see the work that the women and the teachers had put into preparing the church for the show; they'd taken time to decorate the church and to set out a selection of the children's work for everyone to see. It looked great.

The children sang songs they'd learnt and they each received a certificate and a decorated folder full of their own work. The mums and teachers who had participated in the training programme also received certificates. It was very clear that the children and the women all felt very proud of what they had acheived. It was great to see the parents' interest in the children's work too.

Noemí hands a girl her folder of work.

We made the pre-school children crowns to wear, to help them feel really special on the day.

Older boys from the community at the show.

Mobile Play Scheme

"I don't have a home" a little boy said to Noemí, one of the teacher trainers at FEISA (St Andrew's Early Years Teacher Training College). The college runs a mobile play scheme, which entails taking a whole load of donated toys to churches and schools and inviting disadvantaged children aged 3-8 to play freely for a couple of hours. This month, we've been taking the toys to charity schools, where the third year students are doing their teaching practice. One of these schools is also a home for the children and this was where we met the 4-year-old mentioned above. These children really have nothing to call their own and they are so delighted to be given the chance to play in a loving and accepting environment, that it can be quite distressing for them when it's time to tidy up and leave the toys behind. There were many tears when we left that little boy's school!

English Teaching Workshops

I've now done workshops with the first and second years on how to teach English and other languages to young children. I'm very pleased to say that they went well and the students all gave me positive feedback. I taught them songs and games and gave them advice on how to read a story, give instructions, structure a lesson etc. Here are some comments from the students:

"I liked the variety of activities, songs and games which are really lovely and very useful for doing with children. The workshops gave me good ideas about how to teach English to young children."

"I enjoyed the creative way we learned the different activities, games and songs. It’s really great for us to go through the experience ourselves before doing it with the children."

"I liked how Fiona taught, the classes were great fun, the songs were really catchy. I liked everything about the workshop; it was fantastic!"

"I wish the workshops could have lasted longer because they were very useful and, most of all, great fun."

As you can imagine, it was a real boost to my confidence to read such encouraging comments on the evaluation sheets the students handed in.

It was really fantastic for me to realise that the students were so keen to learn what I had to teach them. The second years were asked to get into groups and plan an activity, like the ones I had done with them, for a class of five-year-olds. At the end of the fortnight of workshops, each group presented their activity and I was really amazed to see how well they did and how much of my advice they'd taken on board.

It was wonderful to be using the skills I'd learned in Spain and be able to pass them on to a new generation of teachers.

Mum & Dad in South America

Here's a photo of my parents' visit to the Iguazú falls, on the Brazilian-Argentinian border. Mum and Dad came to visit me for nearly three weeks and seem to have enjoyed their time very much. We did many of the touristy things, and even got to see a real live monkey in the rainforest! It was really great to have them here and show them where I live and work, and also for them to meet many of the people from SIM, who look after me, and those from FEISA who I work with. It's a bit sad now that they've gone, but there are only 9 weeks until I go home for Christmas, so I can look forward to that.