Teaching in the Galapagos Islands
Volunteers will teach and reinforce the English classes for children aging from 6 to 14 years.
The schools are mostly public and all have at least basic facilities and in the Galapagos Islands some of the schools are also private.
Schools in rural areas are somewhat more basic and sometimes the volunteers needs to bring or prepare school materials as all they have sometimes.
Most of the time volunteers have flexibility in their teaching methods; for example, volunteers can organize excursions to teach English outside of the classroom but of course they have to organize this together with the staff in the school as they can not go alone with the students. It is not important that the volunteers have experience in teaching but they need to have an open mind, flexibility and creativity as its not common that the schools in Ecuador have fixed schedules for everything and they might need to create some school materials and exercises for the children to work with during classes.
On which of the 2 islands the volunteer will work depends on where it is available and will be decided by the coordinator in Ecuador. If the volunteer only wants to work on any specific Island they need to say that before deciding to come here to give the coordinator a chance to see if it is possible.
Depending on the volunteers skills, knowledge and on what help is mostly needed at the time the volunteers might help with:
-Assist and teach English. This is what they need most help with normally.
-Help preparing materials for the students and their classes.
-Assist and teach other subjects like mathematics, computer, geography, art etc.
-Help to prepare and go on excursions with the children to different destinations.
-Help the children in after school activities like football, basketball, art, chess etc.
Getting there
Participants that fly to the Galapagos Islands will after paying the $110 entrance fee to the national park in the airport on Baltra island travel on their own with local transportation over to Santa Cruz island and all the way down to Puerto Ayora where they take a taxi to the family who is waiting. The ones that continues to Isabela islands take the boat in the harbour and on arrival to Isabela island the host family will wait for them in the harbor to take them to their home.
For the transportation the participants need to calculate about $10 from the airport on Baltra island to Puerto Ayora on Santa Cruz and another $65 if they continue to Isabela island and back again.
Participants normally leave the host family in Quito at 07:00 and arrive to the family in Santa Cruz at 13:00 and 16:30 in Isabela island.
Participants that will work in the schools on the mainland (except Quito) will be taken to the bus station to make sure they get on the right bus and on arrival to the location of their project the family will be waiting for them.
Travel time to the different cities are:
Puerto Villamil, Isabela - about 9 hours.
Puerto Ayora, Santa Cruz - about 5,5 hours.
Esmeraldas - about 6 hours.
Puerto Lopez - about 9 hours with a night bus.
Rio Verde - about 4,5 hours
San Clemente - about 4 hours
Accommodation
Participants will live in a host family that provides with three meals per day. In the Galapagos Islands the rooms and bathrooms are all shared and on the mainland the rooms are private with a shared bathroom.
They will have about 10 to 30 minutes walking or with local bus.
Please remember that there is NO ATM machines or bank on Isabela island so participants need to calculate and bring money for their hole stay on the island from the mainland, after all Puerto Villamil is just a village on the beach.
Location
Isabela, Galapagos IslandsSanta Cruz, Galapagos Islands
Esmeraldas
Puerto Lopez
Rio Verde
San Clemente
Requirements
Advanced beginners or intermediate Spanish recommended.
Open-mindedness to live and work in a different culture.
Understand that on the coast and the Galapagos Islands the housing is sometimes more simple.