No Normal Days

Emma Lansens

Contributor

I was traveling for one year after I finished university because I wanted to see a bit of the world before I started working life. I also got different opportunities to do volunteering and teaching in different schools around the world in Nepal, Vietnam and Thailand. 

When I then started my first year teaching in Belgium I felt like it was missing something. I actually loved teaching the students, but I didn't really feel comfortable at the school.

I ended up searching for other jobs and I found this school in the Dominican Republic while I was looking online at schools abroad. They were hiring an English teacher. I thought, well, I'll just give it a go. I didn't know anything about the Dominican Republic. I didn’t really know where it was except that it was somewhere in the Caribbean. I actually didn't have any experience teaching English. I had done an internship during my teacher course for three months in England. In Belgium I taught a third grade class, but never in English.

After interviewing, the school told me they they found someone else, a Dominican teacher who had studied in the United States. 

But then one week before school started, after I had been offered another job in London, it turned out the Dominican teacher couldn't commit anymore. They called me to ask if I was still interested.

So I thought, well, yes I'll try. I'll give it a go. I had to pack everything in and say bye to everybody in two weeks. 

In the beginning I was very excited to be here. The first weekend I was at the beach and it’s obviously a beautiful place. But I didn't know any Spanish and that made it difficult to connect. And so I tried to to learn that as quick as possible. I put Post-It notes everywhere in my house. I was lucky that I was living with another Belgian girl who could speak a little Spanish. She helped me a lot. I was always asking her what new words meant. 

I learned quite quickly I think. In about three months I could express myself. It’s so frustrating if you live in another country and can't talk to everybody, so I wanted to learn it very quickly. 

When I arrived at the school in the first week I was just getting to know the children and I was surprised they could speak some English. The youngest ones didn't but the ones that were in second grade could.

But there were no materials. There was only printed paper, some books and a few games. I couldn't really figure out what the previous teacher was doing the year before. She obviously did a good job because they could speak some English, but there was no teacher’s guide, plan or curriculum.

Along with the other Belgian teacher, we tried to figure out as quickly as possible the materials we had, what books we were going to use, the reading levels of the students and how we were going to test them. Basically, we were starting from nothing. 

And that was basically it. Sometimes I think it would be easier to find another teacher who's a native speaker because I don't know all the vocabulary. I’m still learning all the strategies to help the students who have spelling problems.

I find the biggest struggle is to get the children motivated. I think in general in this town it’s a challenge to get anybody motivated. Sometimes it looks to me like they don't care. You can make a very exciting activity, but they react the same as the boring lessons. So why put all the effort in doing something fun and active?

Honestly sometimes I think they prefer just sitting down and being quiet because there's so much noise here in this country. I think they they actually need to have structure, peace and quiet because they don't have it at home. I think maybe this is what they want. In Belgium it was the other way around. Everything is very organized and strict. If we did something fun one day the kids got so excited. But here it’s hard to get them really excited to do anything.

I have to have a lot of patience because they don't speak much English. Now I speak Spanish, but last year I didn’t and so we just had to manage and figure things out. Sometimes I’d say something three times and then get frustrated, but I have to remember that they just don't understand the language.

“Honestly sometimes I think they prefer just sitting down and being quiet because there’s so much noise here in this country.”

I have learned to be able to relax and let go and not make too many plans because most of the time it doesn't work. I loved that in Belgium I had my plans and I was able to follow them. 

Here, you never know. You start in the morning and you have to go with the flow because anything can happen. There is no such thing as a normal day.

One time last year I thought it was going to be the most normal day I've ever had in this country. But that day my motorbike broke down and it started to rain on me. A normal day is just not going to happen. You have to be prepared for everything because things can always change. And I’ve learned not to worry because no one else does when things don’t go according to plan.

All the people here are very good at accepting any situation. They can manage whatever comes their way and I feel like I'm frustrated the whole time. Dominicans just stay relaxed with everything. That’s a good skill to have, but also I think they need some more energy. Come on guys, we can do this like we planned!

I was often very stressed last year because there were no resources and it was my first time teaching English. Then I had to try to let it go and adjust the goals I had for the children. If it doesn't work, it doesn't work. You go as far you can with them. If I have an idea of what I want to get done, and if it doesn't work I’ll just try again tomorrow. I’ve had to adjust to being very flexible.

Last year I wanted to give another teacher a book for her birthday. She really likes reading. I went to look for a book in our town. And it was almost impossible to find a bookstore. 

I finally I found one place. I was thinking that I could get her a really great children's book with beautiful illustrations. There were no books at all for children. The only books for kids were workbooks.

The education results are so bad here, especially for reading. How can they improve their reading if they don’t have access to books? I find most of the children at our school really like reading and storytelling. But also many kids don't like it because all they have are boring workbooks. There’s just not a reading culture here.

So I had an idea to start a library. A couple other people are helping now to get it going. We want to appeal to people who can't afford to go to the bigger towns to buy books.

There are some organizations in the United States who can donate old books for free and then we would just have to pay for the shipping.

We just created a survey with 16 questions that we sent to many people through WhatsApp to see if there is any interest. For now we have twenty-four responses and they’re all very positive.

Monday after school I will go to the park and try to interview people to get some more input. One of the main questions is, “Would you prefer a permanent location or a mobile location like a bus?” 

I think we'll go with the bus because then we can go to the poorer neighbourhoods where they wouldn’t get the information or they couldn’t afford pay for transportation to the city centre. Every day of the week we could be in another location. I know already some people who can put on a little puppet theatre and do some storytelling on a Saturday morning at a park. 

I want the kids to get excited about reading and stories.