Juan Carlos Alvarez, English as a Foreign Language Teacher
Teacher Perspectives
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Juan Carlos Alvarez has taught Basic, Intermediate, and Advanced English courses throughout his time working at Instituto Cultural Peruano Norteamericano (ICPNA) Cusco. Juan worked as an English as a Foreign Language (EFL) teacher at Cusco’s binational center since September 2005. When he received the ESP-Best Practices course grant, he was appointed to start the ESP program at ICPNA—the same organization he had already done so much work with. The course was a perfect fit and equipped Juan with all the necessary tools he needed to teach English successfully.
This course aims at serving Cusco’s taxi drivers, craftspeople, and tourism police officers. Juan hopes to see the ESP program flourish and grow to other groups of people in Cusco.
"I organized a competition among my students to play a game called Trace Effects which has been a tremendous asset to my teaching,” says Juan. “In the Intermediate course, where the topic is Leisure Activities, the purpose is to achieve the highest score in the least time. My students get very excited about the competition.”
“On the other hand, my advanced students have to write a five-paragraph persuasive essay to answer the question ‘Do video games help or harm young children?’. Students both loved playing the game and produced good essays.”