Project Life
Teaching English in Guatemala

Volunteers will arrive on a Saturday and be met by a GVI staff member. You will be transferred to Antigua where you will have an opportunity to meet the other new volunteers and rest. On Sunday you will meet the staff team, who will introduce you to the projects and Antigua. After this you will be introduced to your host family.

During the first week, you will undertake the GVI Intro to TEFL programme, intertwined with in-classroom experience alongside the TEFL trainer in the community. The course is intensive as there is a lot of material to go through. When the course is complete you will start teaching at the schools. Usual days start with eating breakfast with the host family before meeting up with the other volunteers (usually up to four per community) to catch the bus to the project site, arriving to start classes at about 8.30am. Volunteers will work on their project from Monday to Friday. There is a break mid-morning; classes then continue to 11.30pm, when the volunteers will have the chance to plan for the afternoon’s lessons and eat with a local family in the community. The afternoon classes continue from 2pm until 4pm, with a break, before heading back to Antigua for 5pm.

Volunteers have the option to teach their own class or assist other volunteers until they feel comfortable teaching their own class. It is hoped that a new volunteer will work with an experienced volunteer for one to two weeks, with the aim to take over that class once the experienced volunteer has left. Each class size can range from 5-20 children, depending on the collective ability or the attention needed by the children. Lessons range from basic literacy and numbers to educational reinforcement, help with homework and English, games, sports and other activities. Full records are kept of each child’s progress on a monthly basis, to facilitate the volunteer changeover and allow continuity of the child’s education process.

No formal teacher-training is required as each volunteer will be supported by GVI TEFL teachers, project managers or existing volunteers for the first few days. Teaching manuals, resource books, the Guatemalan curriculum and many other teacher resource books are available for the volunteers’ use. A weekly meeting is held in the communities to discuss structure, swap ideas and to work on the following week’s classes. A BBQ is also held each week for everyone to get together and unwind before the weekend!