English Language Training in Lima

Peace Corps offers various training opportunities throughout our service, some of which are mandatory, and others that only select volunteers can attend. We recently received information about an English Teaching Training that was open to volunteers to attend with a community counterpart. The focus of this training is on teaching English effectively in rural areas in Peru. There were only 20 spots available for the training and more than 200 volunteers in Peru, so I applied but was quite excited to be selected to participate. I chose to bring the principal from the main high school in Poroto, Virgen del Carmen. Although he doesn’t speak English, English classes are mandatory for all high school students, so I thought it would be beneficial for him to learn more interactive ways of teaching English. After the training I would like to hold training sessions with teachers at the high school to help enhance their teaching methods.

The training turned out to be much better than I expected, and we had the opportunity to explore Lima and see several new areas of the city. The training was facilitated by the US Embassy in coordination with a Peruvian University in Lima, and although there were moments when the training seemed slow, overall it was definitely beneficial. Just because you speak English doesn’t mean you can effectively teach it, so receiving new information about innovative teaching methods was helpful. Additionally, it was wonderful to have several days to spend with the principal of my school because I could bounce ideas off of him and he could better understand my intentions and ambitions in Poroto. Together we came up with several ideas for work within the school in Poroto, so hopefully when we go back to site we’ll be able to initiate these ideas for the upcoming school year.

The second night of training we were invited to the residence of the Director of Public Affairs for the US Embassy. All participants of the training, volunteers and community counterparts, attended a formal dinner at her home in a beautiful part of Lima. The dinner was complete with pisco sours, butlers serving appetizers, and delicious food. There were several employees from the US Embassy, representatives from various NGOs, and important Peruvian educators. It was a really cool experience, especially for several of our community counterparts who live in small, isolated Peruvian towns and rarely have the chance to travel.

Training continued the following day as we learned various teaching methods and ways to integrate dynamic, interactive learning into typical Peruvian English classes which tend to be based on repetition and dictation. The area in which we were staying was beautiful, surrounded by a large park where we could enjoy the sunshine and warmth during our breaks. At night we went on a Mirabus tour of Lima, which is one of those 2-story tour buses that I would have felt completely ridiculous riding on it if it weren’t with dozens of other people. We actually had a great time on the tour and were able to see all of Lima- the beach, various parks, plazas, and the center of the city during sunset. As the tour concluded we stopped at the “Magical Fountains of Water Park” which sounds incredibly cheesy, but was actually quite impressive; there were fountains with colored lights, fountains coordinated to music, and tunnels of water.