Hello dear English lovers. Welcome back
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notifications in today's video I'm
interviewing my colleague Milena Araque.
She's a colombian teacher who is
currently working in the United States.
we also used to be classmates at the
university a long time ago
she will be telling us about her
teaching experience especially during
the pandemic
keep watching
hello, Milena welcome to speak up Yury
how are you doing today?
hi Yury uh tell us where you are from
and where you live now
i am from Bucaramanga in Colombia I
lived
there like for 25 years and right now
i'm living in north carolina in the USA
and the town is Selma and since when
have you lived there?
since 2017 it's been three years
tell us a little bit about your job
what did you do there do you belong to
any special program
what are your duties and what's the name
of the place where you work?
I came with a program called Participate
learning
it used to be called VIF, I guess that's
the one it's more
known, the name. I came here to teach
spanish but now this year
I am i'm teaching English and Spanish to
fourth graders
so my job is being the teacher a dual
language teacher one day I teach spanish
the other day I teach
English to ESL students or newcomers
there are kids that have just arrived to
the usa and don't know any
English and here well I don't have the
opportunity to teach
the formal part of the language as such
because what i have to teach is the the
common course subjects
so i have to teach math reading social
studies
science in spanish or in english
so I have to teach for example if there
is grammar or vocabulary it's embedded
into the reading lesson is that a
primary school
oh yeah it's an elementary school the
name is selma elementary actually have
the shirt today
they give us some shirts okay milena
tell us
why did you decide to go there? There are
two reasons
let's say professionally and personal
a personal reason so professionally I
wanted
to travel I wanted to know other places
I wanted to open my mind and know that
there are different cultures and
different
points of view also because of my
profession I wanted to to learn new
teaching
methodologies in order to apply with my
students too
and the most important because I wanted
to improve my listening
skills and the vocabulary because for me
it was
very hard coming here was the only way
that i was forced
to speak English and forced to
understand people
personally also because I wanted a way
to help my parents
easier that I could send money home
all right I'd like to know what aspects
you found the most challenging at the
beginning when you were adapting to your
new lifestyle
people it's hard to say but it's like
they're not as affectionate as we are
so yes it's like i don't know you like
like hugging your friends and
saying hi and bye and when you stop you
see someone you stop and talk to them
for a little bit and then you leave or
something
here even at work with your co-workers
they just go
through they just go through you pass
next to you and they don't even look at
you
you have to understand that that's the
way they are
the weather because I am not
tolerant to cold weather at all 20
21 degrees it's really cold already
and yeah i'm being here
to in nine degrees or sometimes zero
degrees or minus
it's terrible I can I don't even wanna
leave home
during that season food you will always
miss
your country for that at least here in
North Carolina it's very hard to find a
colombian restaurant
and well in terms of language it was
really hard i guess that was the hardest
part
because because of the southern accent
that they have here in north carolina
there's a lot of people that have like a
very strong accent okay
now we are going to talk about a little
bit more
aspects related to the last month during
the pandemic
okay so let's talk about these last
months in your school
for instance what actions did the
administrators take
since the beginning of the outbreak can
you tell us how the experience was at
the beginning
when did you start changing your
routines and when did you start
seeing all the changes in in your
daily life as a teacher okay I remember
the exact date
it was march 13th it was a Friday
so that was the last time I had students
in my classroom
that was the last time we had the
face-to-face
lessons that day we were just teaching
the students
and while we were teaching we got an
email saying today is the last day
you're doing the face to face we're
going remote now because of the outbreak
and everything
so that day we had to say goodbye we had
to start telling the kids
wait for phone calls because we still
don't know what we're gonna do
that's when everything started so that
day we said goodbye and we never saw
each other again
face to face i guess actually not that
that following week
nothing happened it was like a break
because nobody knew
what we had to do the county was in
meetings the principals the
administrators were in meetings
trying to to figure it out and then the
next week is when we started calling
parents
telling them that it was going to be
remote so we needed their emails
their students emails asking who needed
a chromebook
or who needed it because some some
students don't have computers
the the town where I am is a very poor
town and the kids that i have are very
poor
and most of them are like immigrants
that whose parents are illegal
they don't have so much money some of
them don't even have a home
they live in their cars so it's a very
hard situation here too
but the good thing is that the school
was providing the tools for them
so we we had to call parents and tell
them does your kid have a computer
does your kid have I don't know an ipad
or something where
he can do remote lessons if they said no
the school provided a chromebook for
them
and if they didn't have internet at home
they gave them a hot spot that is like a
cell phone with
internet to connect the computer they
were giving a lot of chances and
a lot of resources now that you are
mentioning resources and tools
what are the online tools that you have
been using during this pandemic
how do you work right now with
everything remote
and with the with all of them having the
chance to use the hotspot
having wi-fi having computers what we're
using
first is ClassDojo it's an app to
communicate with parents
there you have all the students all the
parents and you just send messages so
that they don't see your phone number
you just text them by that app and you
can post it's like a Facebook for
parents
you can post your story you post
pictures of the kids working
you post any news and then there is a
chat part
where you can talk to parents too and
for instruction
we use Google classroom it's the main
one
that's where we add all the assignments
we use Google slides we use
games like Kahoot Quizzes Quizlet
or like trivia games to engage get them
engaged
but Youtube is a great tool I even use
Paint sometimes to show kids how to do
things
like in a video call like I share my
screen and i show them how to do things
we use GoogleMeet to talk like for the
video calls we use GoogleMeet
they we're not allowed to use Zoom
actually I think we're working now like
three times more than what we used to
work
because during the day you're not only
teaching but mostly what you're doing is
answering parents calls that they can do
anything they don't know how to use
anything
so you're doing technical support all
the time because you have to like make
video calls with the kids just to tell
them
press the button, go to the left go to
the right they don't know
and in terms of the lessons they have to
be very interactive
and sometimes you need some resources
that do not
exist so you have to make videos on your
own
and upload those videos so that's what
we're doing most of the time like I'm
recording myself teaching the lesson and
then posting that video
putting that on a slide and then making
extra activities
like extra I don't know math problems
for example if I'm teaching a math
lesson then
extra math problems but then
you have to look for other ways of
collecting data because
you also need evidences so you have to
do Google forms
or that use Nearpod to collect their
answers or
Padlets or any other thing in which you
can see
what the students are doing and that you
can grade for example for a
I don't know uh for an hour
lesson I can spend like two hours
planning it
yeah I believe you yeah so it is a lot
yeah so in general how do you feel about
these conditions and guidelines these
days
I feel the administrators at school
I feel good and I feel they have been
very supportive
because they know what it is like to
have a lot of work
and now they're trying to help us as
much as they can with coaches
or something but it's disappointing that
the
highest people like the county like the
offices
that are in charge of all the
schools don't understand what we're
doing
and they want us to go back to face to
face
right now and they have been fighting
for that
and well it's not actually face to face
it's like a
a mix we have to do face to face the
students that want to be face to face
come to school
the ones that don't want to come to
school they do remote learning so it's
like we have to teach to both so it
means we have to plan
lessons for the students that come face
to face and plan lessons for the ones
that stay remote
so it's like if we only remote we're
having
loads of work now I cannot imagine
having face to face kids
and remote kids so it's like a bit a
little bit disappointing because what
they say that's the teacher's job
you know that what's what you have to do
but no like
we love teaching and we love what we do
but it doesn't mean that we're gonna
sacrifice
all our time do you have to go to school
these days
somebody yeah I have to go yeah I have
to go I have to go but right now we're
remote
only with the kids they had a meeting
and they decided that we're gonna do
remote until october 15th
so they extended that time but after
that we don't know what's gonna happen
but still we have to go to school uh
well now let's talk about Colombia
after all this experience what do you
feel
when you think of your country I miss
my family
most of all like that was the hardest
thing because
I was supposed to go and visit my family
this summer
and now I can go probably in December I
cannot go either so it will make like
two years
without visiting them and in terms of
education well I feel like
everybody's living the same at least I
can understand the situation of public
schools and everything
because the school I'm working with is
very similar to the public schools in
Colombia the kids are very very poor
at least here kids are provided the
Chromebook and the hot spot
in my country they are not yeah that is
the difference
so this is sad and well I don't know I
admire those teachers like if I work
hard I imagine
them working harder and to finish
I want to ask you two things okay one
um do you think that you will come back
to live here again?
I don't know I don't know
the quality of life here here is good
and it's better so it's like I feel
i can help my parents more being here
than being there
all right and finally what would you say
to all the students and teachers in
Colombia who are facing a lot of
difficulties during this
pandemic I will tell them like hang on
you're not the only ones uh your effort
won't be
it won't be in vain like admire you for
your creativity your sacrifice
for giving your life for the kids in the
case of the teachers
and no matter in which part of the world
we are the struggle is the same
and well you should be strong for the
kids and I'm proud of
all of us and may God bless us so that
we can continue
with this beautiful job. So Milena, thank
you very much for your time
all the experience you have shared with
us it was really interesting
and enriching to know that we are not
alone in this
everyone is facing the same. My pleasure.
All right that's all for today thank you
very much for watching don't forget to
like and share see you in a new video
bye bye
