Sarah Power is a laboratory assistant from Ennis. Sarah volunteered for 6 months on our Teachers Assistant Programme, a special funded programme by the Ministry of Education in Chile.

I worked as an English teaching assistant in a public school in Quilpue, Chile from June to December 2006. As a teaching assistant I was required to aid the English teacher within the classroom. This involved, among other things, dialogue development and pronunciation. For me however my role as a volunteer was not just to teach the students English but to encourage them to lose their fear about speaking English. I always found that the best classes were always the ones when I would drop the formal structure of the teaching environment and chat to the class about normal, everyday things. They were always fascinated to hear about Ireland and how we lived. If I achieved anything during my time I think it was showing the students that there is more to life than just the town they live in and that outside of Chile they could travel, work and live all around the world using the English that they were learning. My time in Chile was a wonderful experience and I would encourage anyone to take part in this program.

Sarah Power