Why did you decide to volunteer with Maximo Nivel in Guatemala?
Liam: So I had started university after working for 3.5 years full time and had a fair bit of savings from that and decided to reward myself after completing my first year by going overseas. For a long time I have wanted to visit Central America and this was the time to do it.
When it came to choosing where I wanted to spend most my time I found myself with two choices; I could either be a tourist, stay in hostels, and find Western comfort food everyday, or I could volunteer some of my time each day with a local community, stay with a local family, eat what the locals ate and completely immerse myself in the culture. Well, that was an easy decision to make so I began my search for volunteer organisations that also offered language lessons as I knew very little Spanish. From my searches I found Maximo and saw they worked in Costa Rica and Guatemala. Knowing the history of Guatemala and the poverty faced by a large proportion of Guatemalans, I felt my time would be better spent there (though having a housemate who's girlfriend was Guatemalan did help sway me as well). I chose to teach English as I consider myself a pretty good speaker of my language and thought, "Hey it can't be that hard," and know just how many doors speaking English in Latin America opens for people in regards to future employment opportunities etc.
Describe your day to day activities as a volunteer.
Liam: So I was working with one other person for the whole 8 week experience. The first week was a bit all over the place as we were both new to this and were not sure what the kids already knew. We were teaching two classes. The first to younger children (5-11 years old) and the second to mostly teenagers. As the younger kids had less schooling experience in their own language, let alone English, we decided we'd focus very heavily on the alphabet, numbers, and body parts while trying to mix it up every day. We would start with reading the date then explaining some things on the board for them to copy, give them turns to answer questions, usually play a game outside before ending with one of us reading to them from a book.
For the older kids we did more lesson planning and chose topics each week that we would do i.e. one week we would do food. So on the Monday we'd start by teaching them new vocabulary and get them to say what their favourite food was and ask the person sat next to them. For the remainder of the week we would start every class with a spelling bee competition on the board where I'd read out five of the words we had given them and 2 of them would compete to see who could spell the most correctly with the winner staying up to face someone else. The kids loved this as it got them up and out of their seats and actively engaged. We would use worksheets that are available from many of the brilliant free ESL resource websites. So for the first 6 weeks we just chose topics for them to work on while encouraging them to speak a lot and and make sentences by writing on the board.
For the last 2 weeks we did the dreaded topic of verbs, which you obviously need and this required a lot more concentration and involvement from all of us. They were smart kids, though, and by the time the volunteering project was up most of them had mastered conjugating regular verbs.
So a typical day involved teaching vocabulary, children coming and writing on the board phrases and sentences, drawing and colouring, games outside, worksheets, a bit of grammar and just general teaching. For someone who had never taught before by the end it started to feel pretty natural.
How has this experience helped you grow personally and professionally?
Liam: I was always doing this program to benefit the people I was helping and had no intention of using this on my resume or anything to score points. However, what it has done for me as a person is a great deal. It has shown me how lucky I am as a person to have had access to such good education in a developed nation, shown me the warm and kind spirit of people who have very little but want to give you the world. I wasn't the greatest fan of children before the program, that has definitely changed. The Guatemalan kids were so down to earth and switched on and I really hope the situation there improves so they can go on to achieve great things.
The experience also encouraged me academically to take Spanish on as a minor when I return to university. I came to speak Spanish quite well and I don't want to lose that. I'm also considering spending a semester in a Latin American country in the future.
Finally, the experience has already got me planning my next volunteering experience! This time I want to do South America, most likely in Bolivia or Peru. If I choose to volunteer in Peru I will definitely be going through Maximo who has a base there in Cusco. When I return to Australia in March I will begin to save like crazy, and hopefully if not by the end of 2012, definitely at the end of 2013 be volunteering in South America!