Ten years ago

Federico Salazar´s nose shrugged a little bit and his eyes shone a doubtful spark. Not even him, a seasoned newscaster, accustomed to the terrible events of life, could believe what he was about to tell the millions of viewers who were getting ready for a day´s work. Many of us, cup of coffee in hand, the towel drying our hair, or kissing our children good morning, witnessed, without fathoming for sure, through the immediacy of live television the strange but certain crash of a passenger jet plane into a silvery scrycraper in New York City.

I called my wife, still trying to figure out what was happening, and pointed at the screen. Was it an accident?, she narrowed her eyes in awe. I didn´t know, the pilot must have gotten lost, but none of us really swallowed the explanation.

I left for work thinking about Sharon, the American lady who worked with me. Was she from New York? No, she was from Miami, or so I thought. In the office, her desk was empty and I was sure she had stayed home, unable to move or talk about the tragedy. But she got in as if nothing had happened. Have you seen the news?, I stood up. She smiled, what news? Then I broke it down to her in as careful a way I could possibly find. The rest of the morning we spent watching the news, zapping from CNN to BBC to Chanel N and backwards.

This Sunday, it will be 10 years of the insanity that hit America hard. Some of us Peruvians thought, ha! Tell us about crazy terrorists! And deep inside us we knew how it felt in the heart.



This is a great chance to teach your students some history, and practice English of course. Voice of America has a special feature with MP3 downloadable audio and language activities for free. Visit:THIS LINK

Helicopters, boomerangs, cougars and bromances

I don´t think I am a helicopter parent, at least I try not to be one, as I tried, when younger and beautiful, not to become a boomerang child. But that one was hard, because in our society here in Peru, children don´t leave home until they get married. Forget the boomerang, then.


I really hope my friends (the females) don´t become cougars. I have never met one in person –though stories have always been around –, but they are out there hunting…bad (or good…) thing is they will not be looking for men like me anymore, their radar is pointing at another direction.

Are you involved in a bromance now (males only, huh)? You might be but don´t know yet, think about it while you listen some Americana.



The words used here are real and have made their way to the 2011 Merriam-Webster´s Collegiate Dictionary. The tip came from our friend and colleague Carmen Caceda. She sent this link to an article where they talk about the new words that the dictionary people have included this year: 150 in all!

Have a closer look at some of those HERE.

Time to update your vocabulary books!

"Cool" teachers

Back in February this year I published a short entry titled: Something to say about NNESTs. The acronym stands for Non Native English Speakers. In the post, I speak about English speakers who are hired to teach English only because they are native speakers, forgetting or simply disregarding (the hiring institution, I mean) the need for appropriate qualifications to do this important job. This is not the case with all native speakers, of course!, but there are far too many to just pass under the radar without detection.


This all comes up now because of a publication of El Comercio on Friday 19th, just last week, called “Institutos y Centros de idiomas.” The twelve-page supplement offers interesting articles, they even interviewed recognized specialists in the TEFL field like Marita de la Lama from U. del Pacífico, Claudia Marín from UPC and Cesar Saldaña from U. Ricardo Palma. But the item that connects this comment today with the February post is the advertisement on page 5, whose image is posted here too, but with the name of the institution covered, just to avoid problems.

The ad opens with the line “Pagaré mis estudios dando clases de ingles,” that is “I´ll pay my studies teaching English.” I suppose the phrase is an invention from the “creative team” (the quotes are mine) that produced the ad. I can only speculate and/ or speak of my own personal reaction to the message that the ad implies.

The line tells me that the people who wrote it (I am not so sure if the institution supports this view) think that teaching English is a temporary activity that university students can do just to pass the time and get some easy bucks out of it while they pursue a more “serious” career. Once this “cool” teacher finishes university, what? No problem, mate, there are more “teachers” waiting in line.

The implications are easy to list but I´ll mention only two. The first one is that training can´t be too demanding. Logic tells me that it is not efficient to spend resources on a person who will not last long in the institution. The second is the rate per hour. Why pay high if the “teacher” is actually NOT a teacher. This affects directly those who are (and there are many professional teachers in that institute, I know). Then, a question appears: Is this happening at other institutes as well?

Another line that called my attention is the one that says: “Profesores certificados por la University of Michigan y TESOL, USA.” As far as I know, the certificates given by Michigan (and Cambridge) are not professional qualifications but language certificates. I don´t know about TESOL USA (is it a qualifying body? Beats me.) Are they trying to substitute (in their scarcity) native speakers by “near-native” speakers?

Between non-teacher native speakers who are hired to teach and university students who take up the job as a sport, how much space is left for the real teaching professionals? My intention with the two posts, last February´s and today´s, is not to attack these people (who are ultimately looking for a job) or institutions (who may hire whoever they want) but to raise awareness among us, the teachers who do this for a living, who try and get the appropriate qualifications, who try and look for opportunities to improve (and, in passing, among the authorities at the institutions). We are the ones who must point the finger and demand professionalism, who must demonstrate that our job is not a form of moonlighting. And to do this, there are so many ways.

Learning English similes

A new semester has just begun. The first class is always a good chance to try and convince our students that effort is a necessary component of any learning experience. I say this because I have noticed that lately the young tend to think that things come easily, they just hold up their hands and violá, things happen –as if in a virtual reality game or a Harry Potter movie. So I begin my class with two similes I have invented.


When I tell my students that “Learning English is like losing weight,” they look at each other and smile before turning their stare at me with a skeptical air floating in front of their faces. I smile back and throw a seemingly tricky question: If you want to lose weight, what do you have to do? They frown, they scratch their heads. There is always one who attempts an answer –I guess they feel I am pulling their legs and don´t want to lose face – and raises his hand: You have to go on a diet? He doubts, and I go yes! A diet! Excellent method. So if I wanted to lose some kilograms (I do!, really), I could diet on Sundays. They smile again and shake their heads. Why not? I ask again. A girl, who is apparently an expert in keeping the line, clarifies everything: No, T-shirt, The diet is everyday! There you are! I point at the girl: Learning English is like losing weight: You have to go on a diet every day! Students who expect to command the language attending classes twice a week or on marathonic 5-hour Saturday lessons and do nothing in between will not achieve the goal. Period.

Then I tell them that learning English is like learning to swim (or to ride a bike if you prefer). Can you swim? Hands up, please. The majority can swim (except for myself, I have never learned… shame!). Then, I point at a boy and ask: Where did you learn to swim? He hesitates, looks at his classmates who are staring at him waiting for the enlightenment of his wisdom and experience in the topic. He stutters but manages to say: In a swimming pool, Tea – chair, and blushes inevitably. But I am not ready to let him go yet, so I wait for the laughs to stop and attack him again: Was there water in the pool? He is redder than a blooming rose. Of course, tea – chair, he wants to disappear from the face of earth. I smile in triumph, take a step back to the centre of the class: You see? Learning English is like learning to swim, you learn in the water; English is learned in English!

Everybody seems to have grabbed the heart and soul of the two similes. They shake their heads, some look at the ceiling deep in philosophical abstraction, maybe thinking that everything they have always thought about learning English has been wrong all along. Signing up for a two session a week class or a Saturday only course might be a problem in the end because in actual fact you will have to study in between classes! Why do they offer that type of course then? Beats me!

Ten thousand

We are not the Casa de la Literatura, so we won´t celebrate our one millionth visitor, but, with fewer zeros, we have reached an unimaginable figure, for me at least. We have had 10,000 readings so far. And I insist: unimaginable. Not because I am a pessimist (sometimes I am, believe me) but because a number like that is not attained so easiy, so to speak.
I wanted to think 10,000 hits was a mistake, so I checked the blog statistics... no, the numbers check out. It must be a dream! But then again, no (that reminds me of Sir Elton John´s Your Song lyrics). It´s true, people are strange (The Doors, this time) and they have actually come to this blog. Did they read it? That´s something I might never know.
So, to make a long story short, thanks to all of you; and let´s go for the 20,000 hits.
Cesar
PD: Are there any topics that you would like to read about? Please, leave a message and I promise I´ll do what I can get something for you.

Happy Teacher´s Day

I don´t think it necessary to repeat what we all know for a fact: being a teacher is the best thing we could have chosen to do.
True. Who else would put up (voluntarily!) with low salaries, indifferent students, parents who think it is our fault their children are what they are, misconceptions like "anybody can teach", loads of extra work, bullying, students who think we are to blame for their low grades, and a long list of potholes in our everyday life? And with a smile? And enthusiastically enough to make time to go to courses, seminars, workshops? The answer is: Only those who have love to give. And to those, my colleagues who tiredlessly build a new Peru each minute they stand in front of a classroom, my admiration and gratitude for being out there, for teaching me that it is possible to be better, and better others as well.
Happy Teacher´s Day!
Cesar Klauer

Publications

Not many of you know that, apart from doing my usual job as a teacher of English, I am a writer. That´s right. I have published 6 books already. The first one appeared back in 2009. The title is "Pura Suerte", a collection of 15 short stories published by Ediciones Altazor. Then last year, Altazor again (they don´t learn, do they?) printed 3 children´s books. "El perro Patitas", "El gigante del viento" and "El delfín de arena". You can see the reviews here at Libros Peruanos.
This year, I published two ebooks: a short collection of chronicles titled "La fábrica de huecos: crónicas gastronómicas del Perú" in Kindle Editions and a book of micro stories (in the US they called them diffferent names: flash fiction, sudden fiction, short shorts) with Evisto Editorial, titled "La eternidad del instante". The plan is to have it printed too, hopefully soon. I´ll let you know.
Last week, it was announced that one of my short stories had been selected among the winners of the Concurso Internacional de Cuento Breve Latin Heritage Foundation in Washington, DC. The contest attracted over 500 works from all over Latin America and Spain. The final selection has only 30 writers, among them myself, the only Peruvian in the lot. The book with the winners is already available in Amazon with the title "Los ojos de la Virgen". That same foundation had already published an anthology of micro short story writers of Latin America in a book called "Al este del arco iris". Nine of my short shorts are in the collection.
Finally, some three weeks ago, Letralia, the oldest and most respected electronic literary magazine of Latin America, published in Venezuela, turned 15 years old. To celebrate, they asked all the writers that had ever appeared in the magazine (I have had 4 stories published there) to submit works for an anniversary ebook. The editors selected 35 works (only 3 Peruvians in the final list). My short story "Salinger es actor de cine" was selected. The ebook "La poética del reflejo" is a free download.
But "la cabra tira al monte" (how do you say that in English? If you know, please enlighten us!), so being myself a teacher of English (always will be), I have tried my hand at translating my own stories. Tough work, I must say, and don´t forget I am the author of the pieces. The final result is some 19 sudden fiction stories that, if plans go as planned (???), will be published in a book and ebook. Still, I have a lot of translation to do, but in the meantime I wanted to share the first steps that these stories are taking in another language. It is difficult to find English speakers who will be willing to comment on short stories (even in Spanish it is hard), so I thought that maybe among my colleagues who read this humble blog and all those teachers in ELTeCS, there might be some who will take a few minutes to read them and, if I am lucky enough, give me an impression. What´s more, if you want to use them in class, be my guest! (Just let me know).
So, here are two short shorts. I hope you like them.
Cesar Klauer


Extreme measures


I had spoken so well of that Chinese restaurant that now I could not take it back, I couldn´t risk it: the boss´s retaliation was not in my plans.

While it crawled little by little onto a visible spot, sweat sprinkled my forehead, neck and hands, soon it would be in the open. What would I say then? I thought of the most elaborate excuses, all with the objective of hiding what could not be said out loud: It was my neck on the line!

Then, I decided to take an extreme measure. Hadn´t Nicholas Cage done it in Vampire´s Kiss? I sighed trying to brave myself up. I took the fork, aimed, stuck it right in the middle (it crunched a little).

I quickly put the cockroach in my mouth. Nobody noticed.




Fly, fly away


He was standing on the highest rock, the dim rumor of the ocean, the seagulls reflected in his eyes. How beautiful were they! How elegantly they flew! Their clear profile cut against the bright blue sky, breathing from the clouds, being caressed by the sun. From down below, they were spots moving around but up there they were imposing figures, masters of the sky. He wanted to be like them and share the open space, float in the air. He saw down the cliff how the white foam bathed the rocks and got ready to leap off. Pitty. Penguins can´t fly.