Base5

"The Base5 English Academy was created in 2011 as an intensive language experience, named 'Base5' because in its early years classes were held 5 hours a day, 5 days a week, for 5 weeks."

This Winter Program has adapted Base5 to be only one hour per day, 5 days per week, for 2 weeks. Initially, I though, "Wow. That's a lot of work, since we still have 5 hours at the hospital each day..." But after these 1st and 2nd days of teaching, I look forward to our next class! It's true that we have to put in some more effort to prepare the lesson plans, read the articles, look for extra materials... but I feel that the class is totally worth the effort (at least my class is). The class that Allen and I lead at the Hospital Universitario has only 4 "students" (they are all older than us... and are working on different PhD's.. talk about intimidation, right!?).

The lesson plan for the 1st day was the most hectic because we didn't know what to expect. We didn't know how many students we would have, who they are, what level of English they are at, what they're interests are ... I was personally nervous when I heard that we will be teaching older, more professional people and possible doctors. Obviously, I have absolutely NO credential whatsoever to teach English, especially with English as my second language... but with only 4 students, I felt so much more comfortable.

On the 1st day, we did a short intro and an icebreaker. We read an article outloud (popcorn-style) and discussed the article. It was amazing! I felt like they were genuinely interested in learning, and because of that attitude, I was much less intimidated than I was the day before. They are such nice people.. so welcoming to us Americans.. so friendly and also easy to talk to. And this is somewhat random, but one of our students winked at me today, and I wasn't sure if that was a flirtatious or friendly gesture. I will assume the latter, since Tenerife has such a friendly atmosphere. Anyway, Cristina (one of our students) asked us a question about verb tenses, which we weren't too equipped to answer because honestly, verb tenses innately come to us when we speak. I barely know all the verb tenses by name.. I can correctly apply them to different situations, but I probably can't put a reason behind them. I did manage to find this Table of English Tenses that should help a lot, and I'm really excited to show it to the class some time this week.

Our 2nd day went even better than expected! Granted that no one read the assigned article except for Allen, we still managed to modify our lesson plan a little and went with the flow. Today, we had such a good discussion going on between the students that I didn't want to interrupt to go onto the next activity. I feel like the in-class reading and discussion really help with their speaking and listening (which were what they wanted to focus on). At least I hope the activities are somewhat helping them improve upon their English. At the end of the day, Base5 feels more like an extracurricular than a chore, you know? It's quite fun, actually.

Here are more pictures of sweets. I'm telling you, I am obsessed with sweets... 

This is from an Italian place we went to for dinner last night. The restaurant opens at 8pm (and if you've been following my blog, that's pretty darn late for my regular dinner time back in the states!) and we didn't get back until maybe 9:30pm or so. And then we had to plan Base5 .. in the end, I only got 7 hours of sleep last night! O.O I thought the dessert was so worth it though.

On a somewhat unrelated note, I switched to Gastro department this week. And quite frankly, I love the people in this department. There's this nurse - Paula who always greets me in the morning (and even though she speaks very little English, she always tries to help me understand the conversation with hand gestures. It's hilarious xD I love her though). Dr. Romero is the funny doctor who tells me so SO much about him and his wife and how they first met and how it's such a miracle because he only spoke Spanish and his wife only spoke French and how he's way too over-excited about his wife's 9-month pregnancy. Haha, this man. So much excitement in such a small person. 

I shadowed at least 4 different doctors already, in this department alone, and they are all so kind and loving. But I can now say that gastro is probably not the area for me, as I've lost my appetite after observing those endoscopic procedures... And this is also TMI, but I've never seen SO many hairy butts in my entire life... So. Many.