Chiriquí Chatter

Yesterday I received a phone call from Robert Justavino inviting me to Universidad National de Chiriqui (UNACHI). That is what I think it stands for, but feel free to correct me if I am wrong. In Robert’s email he said that the students had been asked to bring someone from the US because they wanted an audience whose native language is English. I really didn’t have a good understanding of what their expectations were of me, but I had a free afternoon and I am always game for a new adventure.

It was an opportunity for me to see another Panama University and some Panamanian students practicing English. I arrived around 1:50 and the session was supposed to run from 2:00 till 4:00. The taxi driver dropped me off at the front of the campus and I asked some students and received instruction on how to get to the auditorium (Auditorio in Spanish). While I was waiting for the auditorium to be opened up, I took a couple photos of the courtyard that was in front.

Before the class arrived I took these photos of the auditorium. I liked the murals that were painted on all of the walls.

Since I have, in a previous life, given many presentations, taught presentation techniques and been responsible for many promotional presentations for perspective customers, I mentally went into a mode of grading the overall exercise. If you want to make a sale you need to understand what your flaws are during the presentation. I really expected to be given some guidance as to why I was invited, but the only guidance was to sit on the front row.

As I stated above, the program was supposed to begin at 2:00 PM. At about 2:20 the PC arrived that was required for the PowerPoint presentations. Here is a photo of the students trying to figure out why the equipment wasn’t working, It was finally decided that either the PC or the mouse was not functional and they went in search of another.

A new PC arrived and the activity was ready to go about 3:00 PM (one hour late). The presentation exercise began without any opening remarks about the class, what the objective of this exercise was, or what they expected of their invited guests. There were three of us, myself and two of the young missionaries that I had photographed at TGI Friday’s a few weeks ago.

I believe that all of the students prepared their own PowerPoint presentation and there were fifteen to be given. One student was missing or there would have been sixteen presentations. This slide was put up announcing the theme for the presentations. I don’t know how much time the students had to prepare for the presentation, but I think that every presentation had some misspelled words in the slides.

Everyone was provided a brochure with the order of the presentations. Prior to it beginning, I asked one student how long each student was supposed to speak. She said 15 minutes. Mentally I panicked since we were beginning an hour late and there fifteen presentations. At four an hour, that would mean it was scheduled for about four hours. Since I felt certain that the two-hour limit was real, I decided that they had to be more in the order of five minutes. Still we were going to exceed 4:00 PM.

As you will see from the brochure, The host and hostess (really the moderators) for the exercise was Iris Bernal and Roberto Justavino. They alternated introducing the next speaker. All speakers were presented with an imaginary education and work history, such as PHD graduate from Harvard in Hydrobiology and the author of a newly released book.

The previous photo is Roberto introducing Iris.

Here is the schedule for the presentations. The number 3 presenter on the agenda was not there. You will notice that the names were inconsistent in format. Some were first and last name and some were last name and first name.

This is Iris introducing the first speaker.

The first presenter’s topic was on the effects of sewage on the environment. I will have to say that the content of each speech had been researched and as a person that is concerned about the environment and effect that humans are having on the environment, I enjoyed the presentations and learned some new things.

Let me add something at this point. At the end of the activities, I asked the teacher what the real intent of today’s activities was. She said it was aimed at having the students present and being forceful in their delivery. Now I understood that this was more of a speech class than an English class, even thought all speeches were in English.

Here is the first presenter, Araúz giving his presentation on the effects of sewage. All of the students presented in English and did a reasonable job in their sentence structure. Some were better than others, but each will improve given more time. Araúz had one of the heaver accents and I really had to concentrate to understand him. He did have good content with some specific examples related to Panama City.

The next presenter was Arturo speaking on acid rain. Again the slides and presentation provided me with some new information on acid rain.

Next was Ernest speaking on water pollution.

Next came Luis talking about animal extinction.

Next Cinthya spoke on forest fires. One of the presenters had some interesting slides depicting that amount of the planet that is covered with forest. I don’t remember if it was Cinthya or Annete. Obviously Panama falls in one of the forest zones and the migration of people from outside that are removing trees during housing development is a real problem here.

This is Itzel giving her talk on desalinization. If I remember correctly, her slides told me that only 3% of the earth’s water is drinkable. Therefore the process of creating drinkable water becomes more important as we humans figure out ways to reduce that 3%.

Marisol spoke on noise pollution. Now this one is close to my heart. I guess it is because the houses all have open windows here as opposed to being closed in the US, but I really notice an increased noise level in Panama. At night I can hear bars, several blocks off, playing music late into the night. I am glad to see that they recognize that this is a problem.

This is Elvis. You may remember him as well as Roberto from my evening at the Panama Maritime Training Service. His topic was chemical pollution.

Salomé spoke on global warming. I am sure Al Gore would be proud to know that Panama has been paying attention to his message.

Annete spoke on deforestation and reforestation. It was an interesting presentation.

Wanda’s topic was national disasters. Panama has its share of earthquakes and the sleeping volcanoes.

Juan spoke on ozone depletion.

Dina had the green house effect as her focus.

Last on the agenda was Narda talking about recycling.

The presentations completed around 4:40. The class that was supposed to arrive at 4:00 must have found another location to take their tests. The guests were told that there were refreshments at the rear of the auditorium.

So let me reflect on the afternoon that I had. Let me say that I enjoyed my time. I always enjoy getting to talk to young people and see how the future generation is shaping up. That being said, I feel that the activity missed the mark as far as the guests were concerned. In all of the times I have spent with Darío Quiroz, I always knew what he expected of me. Part of that was because in Darío’s activities, I always had an active role and I made sure that I could fulfill his mission

Today was a little frustrating since there was no mission ever given for the guests. We were not asked to comment on the content of the speeches, the delivery of the speeches, the content or quality of the presentation material, or anything. We were there, but for the life of me I do not know why. I feel like a class like this could really benefit from some English-speaking volunteers especially if they have a background in making speeches. Each of the students would have benefited from some practice time with a volunteer.

I don’t know how much time was provided for this exercise, but there were too many errors in the wording of the presentation material. I realize that the focus was on giving a forceful speech, but for a person that reads English, it is distracting. My PowerPoint spell checks, so misspelled words could have been eliminated.

I was told the time period was from 2:00 to 4:00 PM. Therefore, I was prepared to spend that much time. If you are going to have an activity that simulates a presentation forum such as this then a previous practice session should have been done prior to this. The equipment should have been set up prior to 2:00 PM. At 2:00 the session should have begun. I think it should have started with an introduction for the guests to understand their role and the intent of the day’s activity. I think the guests should have been introduced and thanked for their taking the time out of their day to be there.

If there was a real benefit to having English speaking guests, then there should have been some time allocated for the guests to provide feedback. If feedback was not desired, then the invitations to attend should have been clearer so that a possible guest could have made a decision whether his time would be well spent.

I would have had no complaint at all if I had been told that there was going to be an activity by a speech class of UNACHI and if I wanted to be a part of the speaker’s audience, I was invited. With that I would have had an expectation and I would have known that I had no responsibility.

Even though I wasn’t asked to comment, it is impossible for me to document my afternoon in Chiriquí Chatter and not do so.

Tags: Schools