(upbeat music)
- Good morning, my name is Kennedie.
I'm from the United States in Oregon.
And I'm currently teaching abroad
in Cabrera, Dominican Republic.
I have been teaching here for about almost five months now.
And I'm really excited to take you guys
and show you what it's like to live here.
So it is almost about seven a.m.
And I start my morning by teaching online
with a company called GoGoKid.
And once I'm finished with my class today,
I only have one, I will give you a apartment tour
and take you to school with me,
because once I leave for the morning,
I don't get back until around four o'clock.
So I have a long day at school.
So I will talk to you guys after my class.
Okay, so this is my apartment complex.
Mine is right there.
This is my street.
The ocean is right there, so that's pretty nice.
This is the hospital, police station.
So walking into the apartment, this is my front porch,
my boyfriend's motorcycle, which is how I get around.
And you walk in, this is the living room.
We have our tree up for Christmas,
dining room table.
Walk over here, and we have a little bitty kitchen.
So
yes.
After the kitchen, we can go out here.
And we have our outdoor washing area with a sink.
And then you come over here.
We have our little bathroom.
This is the second bedroom,
which is where I do my online teaching.
They're pretty good sized rooms.
And then we walk over here,
and we have my bedroom.
Pretty big sized closet, and yeah.
So as I just mentioned, my boyfriend has a motorcycle here.
And so that is how we get around.
He usually takes me to school and picks me up from school.
So yeah, that's really helpful.
He's actually a local here.
So that's also really helpful.
He helps me out with a lot.
He does much more than I do.
So yeah, he's actually not here today.
He's working right now.
So I will be taking a motoconcho to school today,
which is a motorcycle taxi.
So I will show you guys my walk to get the motoconcho
and a little bit of how I get to school.
And if you have any questions,
I will leave the question box right here,
and I will answer them when I get a chance.
(birds chirping)
Little clothing outdoor store here.
So this is the center part of Cabrera.
It's called the park.
And this is where you can get a motoconcho.
And this is little bar and ice cream.
And yeah.
(heavy wind) (engine noise)
Good morning!
- [Students, Together] Good morning.
(students talking indistinctly)
- So I will show you the school a little bit more
when I have a break in about 30 minutes.
But I am the official third
and fourth grade combination teacher here.
And so this is an English immersion school.
And so kids are fully taught in English.
And it's a pretty wide variety of my levels.
I have some students who can speak fluent English,
and it's great.
But I have some that are still struggling with English.
So I do use a lot of Spanish in the classroom,
because I have to for them to understand.
But anyway, today's kind of a fun day
because it's our last day before Christmas break.
So we have all of our Christmas shows.
My class is singing a song,
so I'll show you guys that a little bit later.
And yeah, so, and I'll answer some questions too.
(people talking indistinctly)
So I had to put my hair up
because it is hot.
But I wanted to show you a little bit more.
If we go in the school,
hello.
- [Woman] Hello.
- [Kennedie] We have outdoor classrooms.
Hola.
And these are the younger kids.
So these were just recently built.
(kids talking indistinctly)
This is the second and third grade class.
(people talking indistinctly)
Here are some of the other classrooms.
This is the fifth, sixth classroom.
Fourth, fifth classroom.
Hi, Mister Dan.
- Hi.
- (laughs) Go out in the hallway.
So I thought I would introduce you
to one of my awesome students, Brittany.
- Hello.
- And, hello, what is your favorite part about my class?
- I like when you teach math.
- Math?
She loves math.
Thank you, Brittany.
Say bye.
- Bye.
(man speaking in Spanish)
(students singing "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer")
(crowd of people talking indistinctly)
- Okay, I am finally home from a long day.
I'm so excited.
It was the last day, and I'm headed back to the States
tomorrow morning to be with my family for the holidays.
So I wanted to take a second and sit down
and answer some of the questions that I got.
Okay, so a big question that I've gotten so far was
how did I find this place, why did I choose this place,
and kind of along those lines.
So I actually volunteered here at a different school
called the Esperanza Project two summers ago.
And I fell in love with this place.
And I wanted to come back.
So I kept coming back, and then that's also
how I met my boyfriend, which you guys will meet soon.
And we kind of kept talking.
And then I kind of decided that I had my foot in here
and knew a lot of people, and I wanted
to start my teaching abroad career here.
So that's how I did it.
And I found Faro de Cabrera just by word of mouth, I guess,
and being here and meeting the locals, and yeah.
Another big question that I've gotten
was about my Spanish.
And that's a good question.
I didn't know any Spanish when I first came here,
like not even a little bit.
But by coming back and meeting my boyfriend,
who doesn't speak any English,
I've become very good in Spanish.
So I'm not quite fluent yet, but I'm getting there.
I'm learning.
I speak it every day, obviously.
So I would say pretty soon I will consider myself fluent.
So another big question was about the requirements.
And I have my bachelor's degree
and my TEFL and TESOL certification.
I don't have a bachelor's degree in education.
There's honestly a teacher that works
at the school who doesn't even have a bachelor's degree.
So if you are worried about the requirements,
honestly, apply anyway, because they take a lot of people,
and they're always looking for people.
And it's a great place to work.
And as long as you have some experience with kids
and you're good with kids and you do great
in your interview, I think that you would be good.
But yeah, so it's really preferred
to have a bachelor's degree and TEFL and TESOL,
but not required, I would say.
So this is my boyfriend Isaac.
- Hello.
- And we have been together for about a year and a half.
And we met when I volunteered here two years ago.
And we kept talking ever since,
and he helped me with my Spanish.
And he's learning English.
So he will be able to talk soon in English.
Bye.
(engine noises)
So I just home from running a couple of errands
to get ready to go back home tomorrow
at three in the morning.
So I'm going to start packing here,
but I also got a couple questions about the weather here.
And it's hot.
It's hot all year round.
So somebody asked me what was the most useful thing
that I brought here.
And that would be bug spray.
There are so many mosquitoes here
that carry dengue, which is one
of the worst mosquito diseases you can get.
I got it myself.
All my friends here have got it.
And so that was
because I was lazy (engine noises)
about, sorry it's so loud, I'm right in the middle of town.
So there's a lot of motorcycles.
But I was lazy about putting on my bug spray.
And it's
karma. (laughs)
So definitely bug spray, that is so important.
So it's almost eight o'clock,
and I am exhausted.
Sorry, today was kind of a chill day for me,
didn't get to go to the beach or anything
because it was raining.
But I'm going to close out my Instagram takeover now.
But I will leave my Instagram handle here,
and I hope that everybody can follow me.
If you have any more questions,
please message me there.
I'm so happy I got to take you along on my day today.
And yeah, thank you guys, bye.
(upbeat music)