Bournemouth, week two - highlights

Excuse of the week
From: male Saudi student.
I’m late for class because I had to shave.

Best lesson of the week
Almost twenty minutes spent on swear words and possible “light” alternatives, in reply to my Swiss student who is a big fan of the “f” word… Said student is now moving up to L4, intermediate, clearly on account of his ability with colloquial language…

Worst lesson of the week
Trying to teach some intonation in a pre-int class… and to convince a cheeky (in the bad way) Saudi student that going to the pub and saying “give me a beer” robot-like will not elicit a smile…nor a pint on the house. Meanwhile, my other new Saudi is maniacally attached to his dictionary, and driving me mad. I see him smile and actually laugh only while we are watching “The Ice Age 2”; regrettably, it’s one of the (silent) scenes with Scrat…

And in the staff room…
More crosswords (which I cannot do) and Sudoku (which I am a champion of); olive oil for my salad, which makes a big change! And more teachers who are showing interest in me, in where I come from, in my past experience, and who would like to go out with me (regrettably again, the latter is a girl, but at least I’m socialising).

A new class
I’m also teaching L3 in the afternoon, which would be upper-intermediate. Communication problems again, I believed I had to do some serious academic stuff, preparing essays, reading heavy articles and discuss, so I prepared my professor me and went to the class.. and the first thing that I am asked is to play games… So, what exactly shall I teach?

Meanwhile, in Bournemouth…
The airshow has begun.. with a fireworks fiasco. I was too tired to drag my poor me to the beach (again), having been earlier in the afternoon for my walk. Apparently the 110.000 fireworks in one minute just didn’t work and possibly almost set the boat on fire too… The previous fireworks display was also quite disappointing, for the beginning of an important festival like this. Oh, well. Better luck next time.