idealistas.org

We are looking for people who have a fluent level of Spanish for this Project, as we feel it will be difficult for someone to teach effectively in Spanish without this. There are two coordinating teachers supervising the project so it is not essential to have previous training or experience of teaching as we will be spending the month of March working on the curriculum and discussing preferred teaching methods. Experience of working with children in the past in some capacity is definitely preferred, but we could compromise with enthusiasm for the project and a willingness to learn.

There are many weaknesses in the Peruvian education system. Children are taught using a method which mostly involves copying information from the board into their notebooks. The problem with this method is there is no interaction between what the children are writing and meaning behind it, the result is that many of the children have limited understanding for the concepts they are supposed to learn. Further, although there is an examination system in place to test the children’s learning at the end of each year, it is extremely rare for a child to actually fail, even if their grade is very low. The result is that children pass on to the next year without the understanding they need to continue learning at a higher level, and so they fall further and further behind the rest of the class and become increasingly demoralised in the process.

We are implementing a teaching programme at SKIP to provide additional classes for the children. We have conducted an assessment of all the children to establish exactly what they know and where their level of understanding lies. We have split the children into groups according to ability (concerningly, only 13 of the children were at the appropriate level.)We are going to try and make these lessons as fun as possible, choosing a theme for each week and then using that to structure the lessons.

Please view the website from more information www.skipperu.org or email volunteering@skipperu.org for an application form