Teach to Teach: Training Women to Teach Spanish

Dear GlobalGiving donors,

Thank you for your continuous support and donations to our “Teach to Teach” project. Your donations allow us to continue providing teacher support to our Spanish teachers as they grow their Spanish school and become confident teachers.

Recently, our teachers participated in an incredible teacher training. Chrissie Ellison, an Englishwoman living nearby in Peru, with a lifetime of teaching experience behind her, and a certificate from Cambridge University in teaching English as a Second Language, led a true “Teach to Teach” teacher training course. She gave 20 sessions focusing on a plethora of topics that include the importance of phonetics, how to plan a lesson, and how to practice concepts and evaluate progress of students. As part of the course, Chrissie and the women assessed what teaching materials would be most useful to them. They used donations from GlobalGiving to buy teaching materials like books and posters.

Aby, a Spanish teacher beautifully articulates the impact of the training on her and the members of the Spanish cooperative. “Before Chrissie’s course, all of us approached our work as teachers as individuals. We now want to go forward as a team to ensure the success of the Awamaki Language Centre. We understand that this might mean putting in extra unpaid hours to learn and improve, but we hope that this will bring larger rewards in the future.”

With your support, Awamaki continues to support ongoing trainers for the women in order to enrich their teaching strategies and the classroom atmosphere for the students and teachers alike. These experiences boost the women’s self-confidence in their teaching, increases their awareness of practical, dynamic approaches to teaching effectively, and create a greater sense of community among the women. The women built up great rapport with Chrissie, understood the value in her teaching methods, enjoyed making and using new teaching materials, and immediately started to put in place some of her teaching techniques. Since the end of the course, the teachers have met weekly to reflect on their instruction and to share helpful insight on teaching.