Blah teaching English blah blah

So, I just got home from teaching English for 11 hours straight without breaks. Which seems a bit illegal, but.. Come to think of it, everything about my employment here is under the table, so whatever. I'm alternately so sick of thinking about/talking about teaching English but then it is kind of the majority of my life here - all of my friends are either English teachers or students. And it has such lovely moments. Like today, I had a new student who is a total beginner, doesn't know how to say hello or how are you, who I was kind of dreading, but then he turned out to be totally sweet and adorable AND, has one of the most amazingly hilarious situations that I have ever heard - after about an hour of struggling through English we took a break and switched to Spanish so we could get to know each other and chat. He showed me a picture of his beautiful wife and three gorgeous daughters and told me that they are all English teachers. Except the youngest, who is fifteen, but she speaks English fluently. I guess they like to chat in English when they want to leave him out of the conversation! He is also very well-traveled, so I can't imagine how he's managed to escape English for so long.
Anyway, after that class I had a student who makes Jude Law look like Quasimodo, who I kind of try to behave normally around but get distracted by his gorgeous green eyes while he's doing the TOEFL speaking section. He's the student who I had a running joke about with the director of my institute, because he has been my student for weeks and weeks and had never brought up his girlfriend - which doesn't sound strange, but if you are studying for the TOEFL, you pretty much have to discuss every aspect of your life with the teacher, and he is a family friend of the director so we knew he had a girlfriend. I like to think it was because he was flirting with me, but who knows. He finally did mention his girlfriend, last week, in the sentence, "My girlfriend's dad is the president of Banco Nacional." Guess I can't really compete with Señorita moneybags, le sigh.
And speaking of my institute, it's totally become like a little home to me, which is really lucky and really rare for English teachers in BA. Most never meet another teacher at their institute and one girl I know picks up her salary from the institute's director once a month on a designated street corner. Safe and classy. But my institute is like a fun, cozy little clique of girls and women. There is hilarious Lili, the recepcionist, who jokes (?) about loving much younger men and recently called one of the students "feo pero, feo feo!" Pobrecito.
There's always celebrity gossip on the computer, various chocolate and candy, and someone to giggle with when the hot students come and go. "Bonbones!" as Lili would say.
There are things I love, and don't want to leave. But then, I kind of remember that I am getting paid so little that it feels more like volunteer work than a real job. Saving money is not an option. It's too bad that that that matters so much, but it does. C'est la vie of being an English teacher.

P.s. (unrelated) Sorry, this is like some horrible stream of consciousness creative writing assignment, but I'm exhausted and ranting. So here's some more: I've been kind of playing the 'naive foreigner' card with this whole political situation, because I don't want to offend anyone that I talk to, but I'm over it. Not that anyone in the United States will know what the heck I'm talking about, BUT - in my opinion, Julio Cobos saved this country's ass, for the meantime at least. If that tax law had passed, there would have been a total crisis. A disaster. I'm sick of seeing all these Pro-Kirchnerista posters about how he's a traitor and "real democracy" would have been to blindly do what his party told him to. Are they serious? The Argentine girl I live with is Kirchnerista and was telling me that it is the president's right to do what she wants and it should be that way, and that the farmers make a ridiculous amount of money. Well. I kind of just said, claro, claro, and smiled when we were talking, because I don't want mala onda, but! I so completely disagree with that. The whole point of a federalist system is that the executive branch doesn't have all the power and can't just act on its own, unchecked. And well, maybe the farmers make a ton of money, but shouldn't the taxes be distributed by income and not by industry then?

Okey. Ya basta. Besoooos...

Espanglish is espectacular

Who doesn't love Spanglish? There's nothing better than a conversation between people who both speak Spanish & English fluently (or close to it) because you can pick and choose the best and most convenient words from each language - words like "cozy" or "upset" that don't have perfect translations in Spanish, or like "regalar" or "tener ganas" that lack a perfect equivalent in English.

Exstrangers = strangers + extranjeros
What pass? = awful direct translation of ¿Que pasa?*
*Popularized by Moria Casán on Bailando por un sueño (the Argentine version of Dancing with the Stars)
Milagrous = milagroso/a + miraculous
It has sense = tener sentido + it makes sense
Living = living room
Ejemple = ejemplo + example
Fashion = in fashion/fashionable (Ex. Starbucks is so popular because it's fashion here.)

9 months in Argentina and my Spanish is still not fluent, my English is increasingly stranger and less coherent every day. But my Spanglish is just perfect. So much so that it interferes with my teaching. I think teachers who don't speak Spanish are probably better teachers in some ways, because if their students say something incomprehensible, they will simply not understand. Whereas I now automatically translate it into Spanish and back into English in my head and often don't even realize I've done it or that what the student said was wrong. When 90% of the conversations you have in English are with non-native speakers, you get so accustomed to certain mistakes that they stop sounding odd.

The most common mistakes are little things like saying "career" instead of degree, translating directly from "carrera," or getting confused by other false cognates like support & soportar, sensible & sensible, assist & asistir, etc., which sound alike but have completely different meanings. There are some pretty funny ones, like molestarse, which means "to bother" in Spanish, and translates to sentences like "I don't mean to molest you, but..." or the confusion between earn and win, which are the same word in Spanish, so you hear things like, "He wins 15 pesos every hour."

I don't have so many good examples of the same thing happening with English speakers trying to speak Spanish... Except one beloved incident that occured with W while we were living in Palermo last year. We went to a restaurant and I ordered steak & mashed potatoes, and he ordered a milanesa with french fries. The waiter explained that that particular dish was actually meant for two people. W then gestured at me and said something like, "Bueno, lo mismo," as in, Okay, I'll have what she's having in that case. And then added, "Y con papas fritas." Doubtless, when our orders came, I got my steak and W got the Milanesa and french fries for two, with an extra side of french fries. Try, if you can, to imagine the hysterical laughter, to the point of tears, that followed, thinking about what the waiter must have thought. Like, Oh really? That dish is for two? Perfect. Could I have some extra french fries with that?

Anyway. I love Spanglish. On another note, I also love winter in Bs As if for no other reason than the vendors on the street selling hot sugared almonds - I've never tried them but it has to be the best smell in the entire world.

xoxo

I heart teaching English

Ahh... Some days I love being an English teacher. Obviously I love it because most of my students are so fun and lovable, but I also appreciate weeks like this one, where, for example, in the last three days I had 7 classes scheduled, but only had to teach 3 of them. There is a wonderful rule among the language institutes of Buenos Aires that if a student cancels less than 24 hours before the class, the teacher gets paid regardless. If a student doesn't show up for class, the teacher should wait 30 minutes and then is free to go (and of course, gets paid.) This is a completely necessary rule, since most students are so flaky (especially the ones whose companies pay for their lessons) and it makes teaching much nicer and more relaxing. At first I was annoyed when students cancelled while I was in the Subte on the way to their class, or stepping through the front door to their office. Or when students just completely didn't show up. Now, I've been outside of the United States long enough to have almost overcome that innate Yanqui compulsion towards organization and professionalism. Who needs it? A cancelled class means 30 - 40 free pesos and a lot of free time. Also, since I would have already prepped for that class, there's no prep to be done for the next one.
Teaching English is a pretty amazing gig if you think about it. No, the pay is not good. But there are some pretty incredible upsides, like abundant work and constant job offers, the most laid-back job interviews I have ever experienced, and the ability to set your own schedule (I don't work before 1 p.m. It's like a dream come true.) And the cancellations are nice too.
Which is why, on days like today, I have time to relax in my perfect new apartment and chat in Spanish about cultural differences between Argentina and Chile and how to make Lemon Pie, go to the completely ghetto gym down the street and try to figure out the treadmills (all Brazilian, all in Portuguese), and post stuff here. Like this poem by Borges, that I love, love love, it totally captures something about the essence of Buenos Aires and how it feels when you accidentallly stumble onto some perfect beautiful little street, with old and crumbling buildings and laundry hung on the balconies, and it reminds you why you love it here.

Calle Desconocida

En esa hora en que la luz
tiene una finura de arena,
di con una calle ignorada,
abierta en noble anchura de terraza,
cuyas cornisas y paredes mostraban
colores blandos como el mismo cielo
que conmovía el fondo.
Todos — la medianía de las casas,
las modestas balaustradas y llamadores,
tal vez una esperanza de niña en los balcones
entró en mi vano corazón
con limpidez de lágrima

Unknown Street

In that hour when the light has the fineness of sand,
I happened on a street unknown to me,
ample and broadly terraced,
whose walls and cornices
took on the pastel color of the sky
that nudged the horizon.
Everything — the drab houses,
the crude banisters, the doorknockers,
perhaps the hopes of a girl dreaming on a balcony –
all entered into my vain heart
with the clarity of tears

An Open Letter to the Language Institutes of Buenos Aires

Dear Language Institutes of Buenos Aires & the fine personnel you employ,

I have some minor grievances. Surely we can talk in a mutually respectful, civilized way. Oh but wait, we can't, because you are all SKANKY, LYING BITCHES.

Okay, sorry, I got ahead of myself. Let's break this down. I have a few suggestions (outlined below.)

1) Try not to act like a bunch of crazy ho bags. You know, whenever possible.
Like when I go to drop my timesheet off and you totally yell at me for taking on classes and then abruptly abandoning them. And then I tell you that I never did that and you giggle and say, "Oops! Now that I think of it, you're right. I was thinking of someone else."

2) Don't lie ALL THE TIME. Especially when I can prove that you are lying.
So, the internet, it's pretty cool. You can actually tell when someone has emailed you, and check to see what the email was about. Definitively. For any period of time after the email was sent. So don't tell me you emailed me when you actually didn't and then claim to have "lost the email."

3) Pay us more.
You get 40 pesos an hour for our time; we get 20 pesos (or less.) I know you provide a lot of valuable support, but - Oh wait, you don't provide any support at all. Not even free photocopies. I may not be the world's best English teacher but I'm reasonably sure that I do more than 50% of the work when I teach a class.

4) Don't write emails when you're drunk.
Like the email my roommate got last night asking if she wanted to switch her class on Mondays and Thursdays to Mondays and Thursdays.

5) Don't punish me for other people's mistakes.
I know, English teachers in foreign countries have a reputation for being, oh, slightly flakey at times. I'm sure it happens, and I understand you like to be cautious. But enough is enough. I've never missed a class, not returned a phonecall, or left on a one-way flight back to North America without telling you. Yell at me if I screw up, but not before.

I'd like to point out at this time that there are some good institutes out there. Well, one that I know of. Where it's small, friendly, organized, professional, and sometimes there's ice cream from Freddo. The pay is the same, but it's a lovely place to work, and they actually line up classes so I don't spend 3+ hours a day on colectivos and the subte.

See? It's not actually required that you make our lives difficult.

I'm not asking to be your best friend, Language Institutes of BA, I'd just like a certain minimum standard of organization and professionalism.

Until that happens, thanks for all the amusing stories and anecdotes to share over a drink with other English teachers.

Yours faithfully,
Sarah

P.S. If any aspiring English teachers stumble upon this and want to know what institutes they should avoid like the plague, feel free to get in touch.

The other city that never sleeps

What a nice BA weekend.

Kicked off el finde on Friday with a night of bar-hopping in Palermo Hollywood... first Unico (Honduras y Fitz Roy) and then Congo (Honduras 5329, right next door to Kika.) Unico was quite nice, a big crowd on the sidewalk outside sipping their drinks, which are reasonably priced for that part of Palermo. Very friendly bartenders (hey! high five!) and despite the chaotic and packed bar, we got our sugary caipirinhas in under 5 minutes. Congo was fun as well but there was a (big) cover to get in, something I never approve of in bars, and some very aggressive mosquitos and men on the leafy back patio. So, we didn't do too much hopping actually, just two bars, and then came home for some highly intellectual and experimental cooking efforts, trying to create suitable drunk munchies from the contents of our overly healthy kitchen. Too many vegetables. Not enough cheese. But it worked out.

Last night I went to a party thrown by César and the kids at Argentina's Travel Guide. It was at a lovely house in Martinez and included all the elements of a good party - gorgeous Argentines, rowdy Yanquis, choripán, champagne, fernet with coke, and jumping into a swimming pool fully clothed. Well, maybe not fully clothed.

Sunday was soaking up the sun and browsing overpriced jewelry & crafts in Recoleta and then the latest episode of Project Runway on youtube.

Tomorrow it'll be back to business English (customer service: let's read this article on outsourcing) and TOEFL/IELTS prep, including some practice listening sections which I'm pretty sure are designed to drive the teacher absolutely crazy ("Paul, are you taking Intermediate French?" "No, Mary, I'm taking Intermediate Spanish." "Really? Intermediate Spanish, not Intermediate French?" "Yes, I'm not taking Intermediate French, I'm taking Intermediate Spanish.")

Hot. Can't wait for next weekend.

Money Money Money

First, go to Los Alfajores' Myspace and listen to Money is Stupid while you're reading this.
Second, if you're reading this from Argentina, you already know all about it and probably don't want to be reminded.*

For everyone else - all of a sudden it seems like all I talk/think/worry about is money. It's really damn expensive to live in Buenos Aires, especially when you are paying rent prices designed (with love from our landlords) especially for us foreigners. Who in theory have loads of dollars/euros/pounds in the bank. Well, not those of us who teach English. Anyway...

The point is, I'm so sick of talking and thinking about money all the time, but it keeps coming up. Today I had a break between classes and went to go lie on the grass in lovely Plaza San Martín in Retiro. I decided to buy a magazine on the way. Well, I ended up buying Vogue Latinoamérica, but not because I was being good and trying to practice my Spanish reading skills. I bought it because English Vogue was... drumroll please... 69 pesos (over $20 USD.) (The Vogue I bought was 10 pesos.) Well, some economists may measure how the economy is going based on staples like milk, bread, and eggs, but I'm judging based on Vogue. When I was here in March of last year, I bought Vogue in English for 15 pesos. Which brings us to...

Inflation.
The government says the inflation rate is something like 8 to 10%. My highly scientific research that is based on actually living in Buenos Aires and functioning as a person here, buying groceries, etc., tells me that this official inflation rate is total bullshit. The actual inflation rate is supposedly closer to 20%.

In certain parts of Buenos Aires, the parts that are all most tourists ever see, it's easy to forget where you are. With the stylish, cultured, well-educated people, European architecture and avenues, overt leisure (people sitting in cafes all day, rush hour around 10 am in the morning), etc., etc., you forget about the recent and not-so-recent history of instability and lack of stable economic infrastructure, the sense that crises are always just around the corner. But as my students remind me all the time, this is Argentina. There's still a lot of fallout from the 2001 crash and the horrible damage that Menem did to the country.

I don't know that much about it so I'll shut up at this point, but it's enough to say that I am having a hard time keeping my head above water financially. It's not like my life is about to turn into a Dorothea Lange photo shoot, but it's not easy. And if it's hard for me, with this being my cute little 'escaping the USA idealistic twenty-something expat' social experiment, having lived here for all of 5 months, what must it be like for the real residents of the city?

*The picture on the left was not taken by me - I don't have that much money! It also isn't the current Argentine currency.

Exhaustion/ Estoy loca?

I got into a really interesting conversation with one of my students last night. She was saying that she's always confused by the young people from the United States she meets living in Buenos Aires - we always say we came here because we love the country, the culture, we wanted to live abroad, go to new places and see new things, etc. She said it's perplexing to her for two reasons, first because in Argentina it is very rare for people to go so far from their families and friends on a whim, and second, because while a lot of Argentines are interested in going to Western Europe or the United States, they mostly want to go for work. Sure, an interest in the culture and being adventurous comes into it, but it isn't usually their only motivation. She also brought up the economics of it - while people from Argentina may leave the country to make more money, we inevitably come to Argentina to make less money (if you come to teach English.) Much, much less.
This was the first week I had a full schedule (20 hours of teaching.) That doesn't sound like a lot but it is seriously exhausting. Like, too tired to do anything but crawl into bed at the end of the day exhausting. Because for every hour of class you also have prep time and commute time, so it ends up being a full day from about 10 am to 8 or 9 pm. The time spent with students is, of course, the best. But it's an exhausting job. It's not a spacing out in front of your computer type of job - you have to be engaging and energetic with your students and you're constantly thinking - what's the difference between during and while? Why do we say it that way? That's wrong, but why is it wrong? And unlike 9 to 5 jobs at home, you don't get paid for every hour you work.
So am I totally crazy? Making myself really, legitimately poor for the first time in my life? To live as far as possible from everything that's familiar?
Well. Looking at numbers it doesn't make sense to be here, but I've always hated math.
So for now, I'll keep being one of the crazy young idealistic Yanquis who comes here because of esoteric ideas about seeing the world and an even stronger fear of the restlessness and eventual settling that comes with staying at home.

And let me tell you, it's all worth it for one of my students who wrote an entire essay using the word "younglings" in place of the word "youth."

Chalk and cheese?

Aeroplane? Realise? Colour? Pleasure craft? Talk round? Spelt??

Uhhh what the #$%@?!?!

So I have a new student, Rafael, who is (sidebar) fantastically smart and funny especially considering he is only 18 years old. I am preparing him to take the IELTS (like the TOEFL, but for British universities) so he can apply to colleges in England.

In class on Monday, I was looking through an IELTS practice book while Rafael did a reading exercise, and I noticed a somewhat disturbing trend. I couldn't answer half the questions in the book correctly.

For example: Complete the following sentence with the correct phrase.

John and Mary are complete opposites; they're like _______________

a) cats and dogs
b) chalk and cheese
c) salt and pepper

Umm... cats and dogs maybe? Not that I've ever heard/said anything like that. I checked the answer in the back of the book and it was b) chalk and cheese

Another example asked for a phrasal verb that means to convince. Talk into? Nope. Talk round.

Another activity asked the students to identify words that were spelt incorrectly. Yes, spelt. Hmm, I thought, they must be really getting into the activity if they are misspelling the instructions as well.

Well, duh. The whole book and the whole test in fact are in British English, the Queen's English, something that before you become an English teacher you think means a small handful of different words and expressions...

But once you start teaching English you realize it's like a different language. One that you are expected to teach as though you speak it fluently. This poor kid is stuck with me prepping him for the IELTS and I'm giggling at the word "pleasure craft" in a listening exercise.

C'est la vie. Thank God for the answer book. And cheers to England, even though I don't speak their crazy language, it's a lovely country with many fine things to offer the world.

UPDATE: Rafael & I were both very relieved to find out today that students are not penalized (or penalised, in British) for American spelling of words on the IELTS. He also thought chalk and cheese was a pretty silly expression.

You're Hired!

What??? I just sent out my resume this morning and I already have a class to teach and 6 more job interviews in the next 48 hours. Anyone who says it's hard to find work as an English teacher in BA obviously doesn't have the good folks at EBC Madrid behind them. Within hours my email & voicemail were filled with requests for interviews - interviews that, as I learned today, are more like friendly, casual conversations that inevitably end with a job offer. My first job? Teaching English to an exec at Clarín, Argentina's largest newspaper.
Looking for jobs at home is an excruciating process of obsessive craigslisting, answering bullshit questions such as "what is your greatest strength, and what is your greatest weakness?" in job interviews, waiting and waiting for months, lowering your expectations, and secretly looking at job ads for exotic dancers.
And I'm sure that if you are Argentine, finding a job in Argentina is just as hard as for an estadounidense to find a job in the United States.
But, for an English teacher in BA, it's pretty simple - yeah, a college degree and some work experience are helpful, but your main qualification is being able to speak your own language. And of course, the TEFL certification... A degree that actually helps you get a job? That in fact, leads directly to a specific career path? I'm sorry, I majored in the Social Sciences, you'll have to explain that concept to me.
My point is, it's a very unfamiliar experience to actually turn down offers of job interviews, to breathe a sigh of relief when there are no new emails from institutes in my gmail inbox.
Not that teaching English is so glamorous - hours spent sweating it out in colectivos on the way to jobs in every corner of the city, hours of prep time and studying the mess that is English grammar, horrible pay, with no hope of a work visa...

But who am I to complain? I have a job!!! I'm going out to celebrate.

Learning to teach

Ayy Dios mio. You may not hear much from me for the next 4 weeks. And what you do hear, will probably be short incoherent bursts of stress & insanity. This is because I've started taking a TEFL/TESOL course to become certified as an English teacher. Then, presumably, I can actually start working here, albeit as an illegal immigrant, but whatever. I'll be able to stay in Buenos Aires, hopefully even in my beloved but pricey barrio of Palermo, and that is the most important thing. I am only 3 days into my course, and it's already one of the most intense academic experiences I've ever had. The instructor is fabulous, as are the other students in the class, but it's hard not to be overwhelmed by the huge amounts of material we have to learn in just 4 weeks. Added to that, we have teaching practice every week. That means I have teach a real class tomorrow - eek! However, I think this method of throwing us into the deep end of the pool right away is a good one. There is a LOT to learn, so we better learn it as fast as we can. So much more goes into teaching than I ever considered. It's not just the grammar and knowing your subject, it's theories & methodology, engaging your students, motivating them, trying to see your own language from the perspective of an outsider, trying to speak for a whole hour using only present tense, considering age, gender, culture, planning lessons so that the material doesn't just float in one ear and out the other... and more, and more.
But - I have to say, although it's incredibly stressful, I really love learning about all this. And as the instructor points out frequently, we are so lucky to be teaching in Buenos Aires - because that means we are going to be teaching Argentines, who are lovely, outgoing, inquisitive people by nature.
Today when I left class I was feeling speechless with stress, really having no idea how I was going to finish all the work on time, and sort of disappointed at realizing that there would be no social life for me for the next 4 weeks!
Then, as I was walking through Plaza Lavalle to the Subte, Julieta Venegas on the iPod, a Spanish-speaking tourist stopped me. "You're from here, right," she said, "Do you know what those trees are called?"
Here I should mention that in Buenos Aires, overnight it seems, Spring has arrived and these huge gorgeous jacaranda trees with bright purple blossoms are blooming everywhere.
"Jacaranda, si?" I told the tourist, and she went back to her friends to report. I looked up at the trees, a breeze was blowing and thousands of the bright purple blossoms were floating to the ground. I don't know whether it was my broken-down mental state from all the stress, but I had this little moment of clarity, like, Oh, yeah, THIS is why I'm here, this is why I'm doing this. Because I LOVE Buenos Aires. Even on the bad days, when the Subte's broken, no one understands my Castellano, the amigovio doesn't call, there's still nowhere else I'd rather be.

Soon I'll probably be on the street in San Telmo singing "Mi Buenos Aires Querido," you never know, if this English-teaching thing doesn't work out.