Week five
Saving money doesn’t make me feel better..
Good good girl… waking up incredibly early on Saturday morning, after moving to a new place for what I hope will be a bit more than 3 weeks, I lied in bed thinking of my immediate future: London or not London? And considering how I had just been accepted on the DELTA, which is going to cost a loooot, and how my contract has been extended but not till November, to October!, and with one week of “holiday” which I’ll be forced to take during September, well I had no choices, did I?
Dutifully I decided to stay in Bournemouth and invest my energies in the following activities:
- find my way from the new place to the school, as I am now further (up? Down? Who knows). Map in one hand and smiling in the sun of a beautiful morning, I did find my way and estimated the time of arrival within 45 minutes: we are back on track with some serious morning walk before work, yay!
- Find the library and possibly join too…which was not possible as my current address is still in Brighton and that will do no good. So, mission postponed to Thursday, when I should have managed to have some bank statement that proves that I am (for now) a Bournemouthian (??? Making words up as usual…). But apart from that, the library is really nice, Brighton-like although not as big, with armchairs, an exciting noise of life all around the place, and tons of interesting books. I have recently taken up an interest in history, since fiction has bored me, and I am still afraid that it will be hurtful, so I can’t wait to get my card and start reading.
- And finally, invest the money saved by not going to London in…books for the Delta course. Only 3 books should be sort of compulsory, and I did buy one, almost bought a second, then flipped through and found it scarily similar to one I already have: I mean, there is only so much you can write about phonology… I’ll give it another thought before proceeding.
Later in the day, a call from John which lifts my spirit up, especially as it comes minutes after I have returned home with my shopping, without getting lost in the process, and looking forward to scrambled eggs on toast that I’ve been dreaming of for the past month (sad soul that I am…). So I am in the quiet of my room, and enjoy a short talk with him, and am left with a big smile…and my lunch waiting to be prepared in the kitchen!
Seriously though, it’s nice to be back to use a kitchen after two months of forced inactivity.. The place with Deaf Landlady was just too small, the stove electric, and the pans.. well, just not good, as DL tended to burn them almost on a weekly basis… Although, what with the need to save money, I am not sure I will eat that much in the future: the rent, the gym, the course…ow.
Updating regularly would do this blog a favour
Instead, it’s Monday morning and I am just wondering what to teach in my pm class, frantically flipping through books that could present any slightly interesting conversation-sparking material…
Well, I download more stuff from iPlayer, which as usual will be used for the Friday lesson, and then I jam the photocopier due to my responsible decision to make double-sided copies for the sake of the forests, but clearly the photocopier disagrees…
I get back home in a fantastic 40 minute-walk, and experience the pleasure of cooking again after more than two months on a forced diet of (first) canteen food, and (then) raw carrots, fruit, yogurt, sandwiches, and microwaveable soup. So, to start a new section of this blog, let’s begin...
Food for all seasons
Mushroom soup – September 2009
Really, soups are the easiest thing: all you need is some olive oil or butter to melt in the pan, then some chopped onion, maybe some garlic too (it goes great with mushrooms), when they start to turn golden add the mushrooms, and pour boiled water on it all, and a stock cube. Let it go, let it go, let it go, for about twenty minutes; to make it thicker, add a diced potato halfway. Check seasoning, and serve with toasted brown bread and olive oil..or with a nice chunk of cheese on the side. Yummi, warm, autumnal... beautiful
Ramadan is not good
Ok, I’m going to be in trouble for writing this. But seriously, guys, this is not good for you. You cannot come to my class half starved, and make a mess of my lesson plan just because you’re dying for a cup of coffee at breaktime or a sandwich or pizza or whatever. My Thai guy and I are getting tired of it. You’re all nice guys, but please stop it. Seriously. Go to Burger King and stuff yourself with chips drowned in ketchup, and then a gallon of Coke, that cannot but be good for you. And when your immune system tells you that you should really eat, and you come to class all weak and with fever and a sorethroat, do you know what you have to do? Go home, have a nice cup of tea, or milk with lots of honey, and a good-for-you tablet of Paracetamol. That’s a good boy.
Wednesday, September 09, 2009
A long, long, long update... (part one, week four)
Week three
Thursday, am
What is with my am class? The Saudi guys just want to move up, as if being thrown to an intermediate class will make them instantly pass the IELTS, or speak perfect English. They want that, but they don’t think that following my instructions to practice the target language will be useful, so whenever I say “please work together”, they just start writing on their notebooks, or, more annoying, one of them actually refuses to work with his partner and wants to talk to me, so I can correct his mistakes… Erm, man? This is not the way things work around here! So just do what I say and stop bothering me, yes? It’s a long way to get to IELTS level, believe me…
Thursday, pm
“Teacher, you…” My Chinese girl stops to consult with her classmates for a minute, then here comes the perfectly structured sentence:
“Are you going to teach us next week too?”
I say that yes, my timetable says that I will be their teacher again next week…why do you ask?
“Because we want you. Are you going to be our teacher forever?”
…As I said before, I don’t need much to be happy.
Week four
I am a busy bee – and a happy bunny
I feel like walking, and walking, and walking. I feel like running, running miles, running until my legs become jelly and I can’t think anymore. I feel like moving, simply, and the little walks I am taking these days are just not enough.
Considering the weather, I have booked an induction at the gym, and am so looking forward to going, on Tuesday, and work out for a bit, then do some yoga on Wednesday, then work out more on Thursday again, and who knows, a swim on Friday? I don’t care about the money I will spend, I need to move.
I was thinking of my relationship ( or whatever it is we’re doing…) with John, and how we match quite well, as he is this calm, meditative person, and I am a stressed, nervous, hyper girl who runs around, jumps, cannot keep calm one minute in class.. or outside. Which is the reason why I’m taking up yoga next week: to see if this helps my concentration, and maybe gives me some physical peace. But for the moment, all I’m thinking of is moving, walking, running! I’m writing this on a quiet Saturday night, and looking forward to tomorrow morning, when I will go for a short run before John comes to visit, and then, weather permitting, there will be a long walk along the beach, feet caressed by the water… can’t wait.
I am in Bournemouth, and hopefully I will be here for a while. I haven’t had a chance to talk to the boss yet, and all he could say on Wednesday was that yes, I am staying, but for how long, that’s not sure. So Friday, right after my successful pm class (more to come), my empty suitcase and I headed to the station, and caught a quiet train to Southampton, changed train, and about a million stops later I got to Brighton, and was back to the house of horror, or Grime House. Man, what a bad feeling. So bad that I caught the first train I could, on Saturday morning, so not to spend any minute that was not absolutely necessary in that filthy place. 8.30 on a quiet train, a million stops, then in Southampton a lift that wouldn’t work, so my beast of a case and my two heavy bags ran up the stairs, down the stairs to the other platform, and half an hour later I was in Bournemouth, where I spent an hour unpacking, tidying up, and all that.
And then, the city centre, the sun coming and going, my tiredness (two sleepless nights and a heavy journey on my shoulders…), and going back and enjoying the quietness of my room. I feel good here. I hope this thing between me and Bournemouth will be a long-term relationship…
It’s quiz time!
So, take a class of upper-intermediate students who like games, moving around, chatting. Take a Friday afternoon, and the probability that your Saudi student will be in class (i.e., no music – but then, Saudi student was at the Mosque, so I could have played music too. Next time, hey?). Take the quizzes from http://www.eflgames.com/ , particularly Mastermind, and choose at least 25 questions from each level.
Preparation: divide the class in teams, possibly with a name. There should be captains, but since there will be some running required, I suggest that captains alternate, so everyone gets a chance to run and answer (although they are given a minute to discuss the question in their team, most of them tend to answer straight away, while the rest of the team…just watches. So, alternate captains). Give a starting 100 points to each team.
Round one: ask the question; captains must run to the board to get priority to answer. Give them 30 seconds to consult their team mates too – don’t accept answers that come before the consultation. Ask the other team if they agree with the answer. Each question is worth 30 points: if the answer is correct, they are added to the initial 100, otherwise they are taken away.
Round two: same as before, but captains must run to the board, and the winner must collect a slip of paper with a sentence on it, which is either incomplete or contains a mistake. The other team receives the same sentence so both team work on it, then the team with priority gives the correct sentence, and if it’s correct (again, ask the other team if they agree first) they get to answer the question.
This time each question is worth 50 points, but in case of wrong answer, the 50 points go to the other team. Option two, if the answer is correct, the 50 points are taken from the other team.
Round three: this time there isn’t a sentence to correct, but a tongue twister to say. The team has 30-45 seconds to practice, then they give it a go, either together or one by one. If they are clever and really good, they could try and do it by one word a person, which could also be fun. The other team, having received the same tongue twister, can decide if the performance was good enough…
The questions are now worth 100 points.
Round four: no running involved this time. The first thing to do is announcing the category of the question; the team then decide how much they want to bet, depending on how strong they think they are on the subject (minimum 100, maximum 500 points, or things can get tricky). Clearly, if the answer is wrong, they will lose the points they have bet; and this time there is no running as both team get a chance to answer, so they could both win or lose a lot of points at the same time.
Round five is an extra, and it involves a minute for each team to play either a miming game or taboo or hot seat with some vocabulary, which could be revision of the week or such. Each word guessed is another 100 points. This is where my students get loud and try to interfere with the ones who are explaining the words (in hot seat), but it’s really fun!
And…that’s it. All in all it takes about 45 minutes, and it’s really cool for a Friday afternoon.
Now, for next Friday instead…
And it’s the end of another week…
Worst moment of the week, and possibly of my entire career.
I am teaching this random class of German teenager on the Bank Holiday Monday. They are a nice bunch, it takes them a while to warm up, and one of them, who is the oldest of the group, being 19, is the smartest, or at least the one who speaks the most and has a richer vocabulary. I quite like him.
We start the “create your own country/island” project, which thrills them, and I just wander around checking for spelling mistakes, helping with vocabulary and the rest. I get to this guy’s project, which he wanted to do alone, and I decided not to object seen as his mate didn’t look too keen on cooperating with him. So I start reading his description of his new island, where as soon as you land, you metamorphose into a god and can speak all the languages of the world, and lots of other fancy stuff: the guy is clearly into sci-fi. Then it gets to the bit where he says that “you will begin your day drinking champagne and thinking back to last night’s raping fun while you walk along the beach,” wowowowow, what’s that? Raping fun? Surely he’s confusing with rave, like Fatboy Slim on Brighton beach? But no, hey, the idea is that on this island you can rape a woman whenever you like, and hear hear, IF SHE LIKES IT, you can marry her in old Venice, the most romantic place in the world for newlyweds. I am so taken aback that I have no words to reply, when a simple sentence would have been enough, something on the line of “the whole concept of rape is that she will NOT like it!”!
I leave the class ten minutes later trembling with rage, and the morning after, when I meet the guy by chance in the corridor with his friends, I want to do two things: first, kick him really hard where it really hurts; second, wish him to be raped, then see if he likes it! Holy, I thought I had seen it all…
Best moment of the week
My Czech student from L3 is leaving! HURRAY!!!
(Ahem..apologies to her, because I understand that when you are 17 and it’s August and everyone at home is having fun while you are spending 5 hours a day in a school, for an entire month, and as soon as you get home you must go back to school, well yes, I understand how that can piss you off, but blaming the teachers, the school, the other students, England itself for your misfortune and making ME feel guilty for not bringing enough fun into your life…well that’s simply not fair).
The Friday lesson
Or: how to use BBC iPlayer productively, rather than just download “Desperate Romantics” and stuff.
The Total Wipeout has been my favourite programme of the summer, and I am so sad that it’s finished. I really enjoyed it, good fun to relax. So, the Friday lesson is going to be about it!
L5, pre-int students: first we will learn or revise some vocab on sport, see some more prepositions, practice practice practice; L3, my upper-int, we will only check a few more complicated prepositions, speak a bit, and then for both group there will be the same worksheet which I have carefully planned while watching the Wipeout for the third time, and which include listening for gist and details, paying attention to numbers, revising vocabulary for personality, present perfect, watching carefully before choosing the right option (does nervous Anthony jump on the obstacles, swim in the water or jump in the water?), and so on. Plus, it’s good fun and relaxing at the end of a week.
For me too, really: I’ve just joined the gym, after taking the induction on the grounds that I would go on a pay-as-you-go, and then realising that the gym is a drug therefore it would be more convenient to just join it and go mad about it, so I’ve been working out and loving every single moment so much! And then this Friday I am moving (again!) to Tall Kind Teacher’s house, for what I hope will be a longer period of time than it’s been so far, and have a looooot to unpack, tidy, and all that, and before that I have the interview for the DELTA (more to come on the subject), plus the usual stuff coming up at the weekend: London, possibly, or whatever will be..
Wow, am I a busy bee. And happy, happy, happy!
Thursday, am
What is with my am class? The Saudi guys just want to move up, as if being thrown to an intermediate class will make them instantly pass the IELTS, or speak perfect English. They want that, but they don’t think that following my instructions to practice the target language will be useful, so whenever I say “please work together”, they just start writing on their notebooks, or, more annoying, one of them actually refuses to work with his partner and wants to talk to me, so I can correct his mistakes… Erm, man? This is not the way things work around here! So just do what I say and stop bothering me, yes? It’s a long way to get to IELTS level, believe me…
Thursday, pm
“Teacher, you…” My Chinese girl stops to consult with her classmates for a minute, then here comes the perfectly structured sentence:
“Are you going to teach us next week too?”
I say that yes, my timetable says that I will be their teacher again next week…why do you ask?
“Because we want you. Are you going to be our teacher forever?”
…As I said before, I don’t need much to be happy.
Week four
I am a busy bee – and a happy bunny
I feel like walking, and walking, and walking. I feel like running, running miles, running until my legs become jelly and I can’t think anymore. I feel like moving, simply, and the little walks I am taking these days are just not enough.
Considering the weather, I have booked an induction at the gym, and am so looking forward to going, on Tuesday, and work out for a bit, then do some yoga on Wednesday, then work out more on Thursday again, and who knows, a swim on Friday? I don’t care about the money I will spend, I need to move.
I was thinking of my relationship ( or whatever it is we’re doing…) with John, and how we match quite well, as he is this calm, meditative person, and I am a stressed, nervous, hyper girl who runs around, jumps, cannot keep calm one minute in class.. or outside. Which is the reason why I’m taking up yoga next week: to see if this helps my concentration, and maybe gives me some physical peace. But for the moment, all I’m thinking of is moving, walking, running! I’m writing this on a quiet Saturday night, and looking forward to tomorrow morning, when I will go for a short run before John comes to visit, and then, weather permitting, there will be a long walk along the beach, feet caressed by the water… can’t wait.
I am in Bournemouth, and hopefully I will be here for a while. I haven’t had a chance to talk to the boss yet, and all he could say on Wednesday was that yes, I am staying, but for how long, that’s not sure. So Friday, right after my successful pm class (more to come), my empty suitcase and I headed to the station, and caught a quiet train to Southampton, changed train, and about a million stops later I got to Brighton, and was back to the house of horror, or Grime House. Man, what a bad feeling. So bad that I caught the first train I could, on Saturday morning, so not to spend any minute that was not absolutely necessary in that filthy place. 8.30 on a quiet train, a million stops, then in Southampton a lift that wouldn’t work, so my beast of a case and my two heavy bags ran up the stairs, down the stairs to the other platform, and half an hour later I was in Bournemouth, where I spent an hour unpacking, tidying up, and all that.
And then, the city centre, the sun coming and going, my tiredness (two sleepless nights and a heavy journey on my shoulders…), and going back and enjoying the quietness of my room. I feel good here. I hope this thing between me and Bournemouth will be a long-term relationship…
It’s quiz time!
So, take a class of upper-intermediate students who like games, moving around, chatting. Take a Friday afternoon, and the probability that your Saudi student will be in class (i.e., no music – but then, Saudi student was at the Mosque, so I could have played music too. Next time, hey?). Take the quizzes from http://www.eflgames.com/ , particularly Mastermind, and choose at least 25 questions from each level.
Preparation: divide the class in teams, possibly with a name. There should be captains, but since there will be some running required, I suggest that captains alternate, so everyone gets a chance to run and answer (although they are given a minute to discuss the question in their team, most of them tend to answer straight away, while the rest of the team…just watches. So, alternate captains). Give a starting 100 points to each team.
Round one: ask the question; captains must run to the board to get priority to answer. Give them 30 seconds to consult their team mates too – don’t accept answers that come before the consultation. Ask the other team if they agree with the answer. Each question is worth 30 points: if the answer is correct, they are added to the initial 100, otherwise they are taken away.
Round two: same as before, but captains must run to the board, and the winner must collect a slip of paper with a sentence on it, which is either incomplete or contains a mistake. The other team receives the same sentence so both team work on it, then the team with priority gives the correct sentence, and if it’s correct (again, ask the other team if they agree first) they get to answer the question.
This time each question is worth 50 points, but in case of wrong answer, the 50 points go to the other team. Option two, if the answer is correct, the 50 points are taken from the other team.
Round three: this time there isn’t a sentence to correct, but a tongue twister to say. The team has 30-45 seconds to practice, then they give it a go, either together or one by one. If they are clever and really good, they could try and do it by one word a person, which could also be fun. The other team, having received the same tongue twister, can decide if the performance was good enough…
The questions are now worth 100 points.
Round four: no running involved this time. The first thing to do is announcing the category of the question; the team then decide how much they want to bet, depending on how strong they think they are on the subject (minimum 100, maximum 500 points, or things can get tricky). Clearly, if the answer is wrong, they will lose the points they have bet; and this time there is no running as both team get a chance to answer, so they could both win or lose a lot of points at the same time.
Round five is an extra, and it involves a minute for each team to play either a miming game or taboo or hot seat with some vocabulary, which could be revision of the week or such. Each word guessed is another 100 points. This is where my students get loud and try to interfere with the ones who are explaining the words (in hot seat), but it’s really fun!
And…that’s it. All in all it takes about 45 minutes, and it’s really cool for a Friday afternoon.
Now, for next Friday instead…
And it’s the end of another week…
Worst moment of the week, and possibly of my entire career.
I am teaching this random class of German teenager on the Bank Holiday Monday. They are a nice bunch, it takes them a while to warm up, and one of them, who is the oldest of the group, being 19, is the smartest, or at least the one who speaks the most and has a richer vocabulary. I quite like him.
We start the “create your own country/island” project, which thrills them, and I just wander around checking for spelling mistakes, helping with vocabulary and the rest. I get to this guy’s project, which he wanted to do alone, and I decided not to object seen as his mate didn’t look too keen on cooperating with him. So I start reading his description of his new island, where as soon as you land, you metamorphose into a god and can speak all the languages of the world, and lots of other fancy stuff: the guy is clearly into sci-fi. Then it gets to the bit where he says that “you will begin your day drinking champagne and thinking back to last night’s raping fun while you walk along the beach,” wowowowow, what’s that? Raping fun? Surely he’s confusing with rave, like Fatboy Slim on Brighton beach? But no, hey, the idea is that on this island you can rape a woman whenever you like, and hear hear, IF SHE LIKES IT, you can marry her in old Venice, the most romantic place in the world for newlyweds. I am so taken aback that I have no words to reply, when a simple sentence would have been enough, something on the line of “the whole concept of rape is that she will NOT like it!”!
I leave the class ten minutes later trembling with rage, and the morning after, when I meet the guy by chance in the corridor with his friends, I want to do two things: first, kick him really hard where it really hurts; second, wish him to be raped, then see if he likes it! Holy, I thought I had seen it all…
Best moment of the week
My Czech student from L3 is leaving! HURRAY!!!
(Ahem..apologies to her, because I understand that when you are 17 and it’s August and everyone at home is having fun while you are spending 5 hours a day in a school, for an entire month, and as soon as you get home you must go back to school, well yes, I understand how that can piss you off, but blaming the teachers, the school, the other students, England itself for your misfortune and making ME feel guilty for not bringing enough fun into your life…well that’s simply not fair).
The Friday lesson
Or: how to use BBC iPlayer productively, rather than just download “Desperate Romantics” and stuff.
The Total Wipeout has been my favourite programme of the summer, and I am so sad that it’s finished. I really enjoyed it, good fun to relax. So, the Friday lesson is going to be about it!
L5, pre-int students: first we will learn or revise some vocab on sport, see some more prepositions, practice practice practice; L3, my upper-int, we will only check a few more complicated prepositions, speak a bit, and then for both group there will be the same worksheet which I have carefully planned while watching the Wipeout for the third time, and which include listening for gist and details, paying attention to numbers, revising vocabulary for personality, present perfect, watching carefully before choosing the right option (does nervous Anthony jump on the obstacles, swim in the water or jump in the water?), and so on. Plus, it’s good fun and relaxing at the end of a week.
For me too, really: I’ve just joined the gym, after taking the induction on the grounds that I would go on a pay-as-you-go, and then realising that the gym is a drug therefore it would be more convenient to just join it and go mad about it, so I’ve been working out and loving every single moment so much! And then this Friday I am moving (again!) to Tall Kind Teacher’s house, for what I hope will be a longer period of time than it’s been so far, and have a looooot to unpack, tidy, and all that, and before that I have the interview for the DELTA (more to come on the subject), plus the usual stuff coming up at the weekend: London, possibly, or whatever will be..
Wow, am I a busy bee. And happy, happy, happy!
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