This is my final, intensely reflective, blog. I have been
through so much over the past 3 ½ weeks and I am a completely different person
than when I left on this journey, which shocked me when I realized it.
When I first found out about this trip, I was really looking
forward to exploring a different culture and understanding more about what ELLs
feel when first entering my future classrooms. I also just really wanted to
have the experience of going to Costa Rica and I wasn’t sure when I would be
able to have that opportunity again. I obviously reached this goal of going to
Costa Rica and as far as the other goal, I feel that I have a better insight
but I don’t believe I will be able to fully understand. I believe this because
I was only out of my comfort zone for three weeks, my ELLs will be pulled from
their comfort zones with potentially no knowledge of if or when they will be
returning. From the experience I did get, I have the knowledge now of how that
move can be so uncomfortable and how awkward it feels to be surrounded by
people who are all speaking another language that you may or may not have had
exposure to. I think that this will help me even more than if I had truly had
the same experience as an ELL.
I believe that I can take my experiences and use them to
help all my future students, not just the ELLs, special needs children and
children who are struggling with whatever else it may be. I have experienced feeling
awkward, scared, and alone in a room full of people bursting with energy and
wanting to communicate with me all at the same time. This happens to students
all the time, moving to a new school, town, state, or even country can invoke
all of those overwhelming feelings and I can now say that I completely, 100%,
understand them. I can show my students through nonverbal communications what I
expect of them and how they can trust me, the same way that my wonderful host
families did in both Heredia and Monteverde. I was lucky in the fact that both
of my families were patient and kind to me and understanding of the fact that I
spoke very, very broken Spanish. I now have the knowledge that sometimes the
best communication is through actions and not words.
I walked into the airport in Costa Rica expecting to have a
blast and tons of fun and no hard work. I did have an amazing time, and a lot
of fun, but I worked harder than I ever had before. My brain was constantly
going, nonstop. I would conjugate in Spanish class and translate when I was in
my homestays. I would be doing homework in Spanish, communicating to my
families in Spanish, and in the background I was taking everything that went in
and turning it into English, coming up with a response, and trying my hardest
to turn it back into Spanish. A few times, I was at a loss for words because I
simply did not have the knowledge to respond. Not only did I learn from myself
from my host families, but the experiences and interactions with those who came
with myself from the States. I have learned that I am a very patient person,
and I have also learned that just because you don’t like a person, it doesn’t mean
that you have to be blunt and rude. I have learned that I have the ability to
keep my head and remain positive while others around you continue to be
negative and try to pull you into their negativity. I will be the first to
admit it; I was very, very negative the first week there. The trip was more work
than I expected and I was not a fan. But once I reached Monteverde, my eyes
were opened to how rude I was being to the experience that was placed in front
of me. I did a complete 180 and everything changed. Yes, Spanish was still so
difficult, and yes, I was still missing about 50% of what my host family was
trying to say to me. But, as I continued on, things became clearer, more things
started clicking. I will never forget the moment that I walked into my Spanish
teacher’s room that I had my second week at the beginning of the third week,
and I just started speaking like Spanish was my native language. I remember
turning out of the room and being shocked that I had just done that.
Thinking back on this, if I were to do the trip again, I
would have a smaller group because I feel like it just created a stew pot for
the negativity at times. I would also just not be so negative. Sometimes life
is hard, and sometimes you have to do things you don’t want to do. That comes
with growing up. I would not change anything else because all of the uncomfortable
and awkward feelings I had in the beginning made the end result so much
stronger. I would not have changed as much as I did if I had been placed in a
hotel for the three weeks, or even if I had been placed with families that
spoke English. This trip has pulled me to want to work with ELLs even more than
I did before. I have previously taken ESL for Non-ESL majors through UNCW and I
had a small experience with working with ELLs, but after seeing what all
happens at home when you are uncomfortable, I want to work with them even more.
I want to help as many students as physically possible as I can. I want to help
every student who struggles, I know this isn’t possible, but it has got me
thinking about working more one on one with students and not as a classroom
teacher.
All in all, this was a life changing, eye opening experience
and I would not change anything that I felt on the trip, minus the bits of
frustration with those in my group. For future students going on this trip, I
say do it, but only do it if you are ready to change who you are and fully immerse
yourself. If you go and try to get in touch with home the whole time, and spend
your nights trying to get wifi you are going to miss out on what happens at
home and to me that was the best part of the whole trip. I came home to a “Hola,
Maggie! Como te fue?” Nothing felt better than knowing that no matter what
happened during the day, there was someone who I came home to that genuinely
cared about how my day was and that was the closest thing to being at home that
I felt. It was a wonderful end to each day, and I don’t believe that there is
anything else that could end this post. Family means everything down there and
now I realize how lucky I am to have to amazing family that I do.
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