WHY intern Emma Fawcett prepares for life abroad
For me, taking a "gap year," or a year off between high school and college, was an easy decision to make. I have always wanted to volunteer in a developing country, and a gap year seemed like the ideal opportunity. After college, I will be focused upon finding employment and paying off my college loans! With a heightened awareness of the "real world" applications of my degree, I will surely gain more from my college education at New York University. My gap year provides an opportunity for experiential learning through an internship at World Hunger Year and a volunteer teaching placement in Guatemala.
Though my friends and teachers were rather horrified when I mentioned that I would be taking a year away from formal education, the concept is nothing new. About 20 percent of students in the UK opt for a "gap year," and the idea is gaining popularity here in the US — among colleges and employers as well as students. A growing number of colleges, including NYU, are enabling students to defer their admissions for one year while retaining merit scholarships, financial aid and housing. Princeton and Harvard, for example, suggest taking a year off to all of their admitted students.
I leave for Guatemala in January, and I will spend three months teaching English in a local school on the outskirts of Guatemala City. Perhaps as exciting as the opportunity to teach in a developing country is the chance to completely immerse myself in Guatemalan culture. Not only will I be able to ride to school each morning on a retired and repainted US school bus (as these are used by Guatemalan bus companies), but I will be doing a homestay with a Guatemalan family. I will most likely be eating generous portions of frijoles con arroz and hand-washing my clothes in a communal concrete basin. When in need of the comforts of home, I will no doubt turn to food: Guatemala City is host to McDonalds, TGI Fridays, Pizza Hut, and KFC, to name a few.
From what I've read about volunteer teaching in Guatemala, I might have anywhere from five to 45 students. They might burst into applause upon my arrival or shout "Finished!" before I've started to teach and demand to go outside and play soccer. I might be teaching in a dilapidated building and make do without a chalkboard, or I might teach them computers and lead games and activities on the playing fields. The reality of my experience will most likely be a combination of all of these things. Regardless of the environment in which I teach, the number of students I have, and their willingness to learn English, my teaching placement will certainly be a tremendous challenge.
While I have taken Spanish classes for quite a few years, I consider myself an intermediate-level speaker at best. Although most TEFL (Teaching English as a Foreign Language) teachers are not permitted to speak Spanish in the classroom, I am a little apprehensive about classroom management and grammar lessons without the assistance of a common tongue between myself and my students. I am currently in the midst of my online TEFL course, yet I can not help but wonder whether past participles and prepositions will be of little use to me in Guatemala — surely my mission will be to integrate English vocabulary and expressions into their daily lives and activities. But time is of the essence. According to the World Bank, the average Guatemalan adult has had only three and a half years of schooling. The limited degree of schooling belies another reality of a country known for its sweatshops, with Guatemalans work more hours per day than any other people on the planet.
After a semester-long internship at WHY and a volunteering project abroad, I will have a much greater appreciation for writing seminars and literature courses after teaching Hispanic students vocabulary and verb tenses. In a language that has sentences like, "Since there is no time like the present, he thought it was time to present the present," I’m certainly glad to be a native speaker! My gap year will even lend greater clarity to economics and international relations courses, having seen the work of non-profits like WHY and the impact of humanitarian projects upon local communities. Too few teens have the opportunity to define an entire year of their lives, turning a tabula rasa into a meaningful time to accomplish lifelong goals and gain much-needed perspective.
Emma Fawcett is an intern at World Hunger Year. She is looking forward to teaching English as a Second Language abroad, starting in January 2005.
