"Dear teacher,
thank you for teaching me. I really enjoyed studying English. You always smile and I like your smile. I had a good time with you, so I never forget you. I wish you happiness".
"Dear teacher,
thank you teacher. You taught me speaking and writing. I think I talked with you a lot. You always worry about students and you always think about students. It's difficult for people but you do it. You say "I want to become a good teacher" every day, why? I'm sure you're very very good teacher and I hope you will become the best teacher all over the world.
You can do it".
Saturday, February 27, 2010
Sunday, February 14, 2010
Confessions of an Agatha Christie-a-holic
..ahem..well, what can I say, I'm guilty. ITV3 is on a Poirot marathon, and having watched two movies yesterday, and (ehm) 4 today, I feel I can happily register in some detox programme now...
But it's worked: while watching "Lord Edgware dies" I read and took notes from my materials on writing and writing lessons; during "The ABC murders" I prepared a skeleton and first draft of the background assignment for LSA3; as Poirot investigated in "The Hollow" I decided the plan for the perfect writing lesson; and as the clues became clearer and clearer (not) in "The murder of Roger Ackroyd" I sketched both a needs analysis sheet and a diagnostic test for module 3. So, how productive was my Sunday then?
I definetely deserved a "quiet" day like today, and am now ready to go back to work tomorrow, for an intense week, which will see me teach L5 as always, prepare the Japanese for their TOEIC in lesson 7, and run more and more...After all, exercise is a natural anti-depressant.
But it's worked: while watching "Lord Edgware dies" I read and took notes from my materials on writing and writing lessons; during "The ABC murders" I prepared a skeleton and first draft of the background assignment for LSA3; as Poirot investigated in "The Hollow" I decided the plan for the perfect writing lesson; and as the clues became clearer and clearer (not) in "The murder of Roger Ackroyd" I sketched both a needs analysis sheet and a diagnostic test for module 3. So, how productive was my Sunday then?
I definetely deserved a "quiet" day like today, and am now ready to go back to work tomorrow, for an intense week, which will see me teach L5 as always, prepare the Japanese for their TOEIC in lesson 7, and run more and more...After all, exercise is a natural anti-depressant.
Friday, February 12, 2010
Depression, chocolate, and a little help from my friends
Well, let's not talk about the first topic of the title, shall we?
But it's Chinese new year on Sunday, and my students are set on making me a choc-a-holic, clearly! Lovely L5, all of them. Although I hate teaching long courses in the afternoon as I never know what to do, and apparently I cannot use the book for EAP? Why is that?
Anyway, the weekend is going to be dedicated to a study of needs analysis and diagnostic tests, to..test on my L5 next week, before preparing section 2 of my extended assignment. The good news is, I just got back section 1, and my tutor says I'm off to a good start...phew! Also, all I had to do was ask a couple of people in the office and...two emails with sample of needs analysis questionnaires, and a teacher who was still looking for more samples as I was leaving the school, muttering something about how he won't get any sleep if he can't find them... I always find it amazing when people are so nice to me. It's...moving.
In other news, I've got a job offer with interesting future opportunities, so: London here I come! It's official, I am moving the the city by the end of June, and will work there all summer, then let's keep our fingers crossed and see if I can stay in the same school (and chances are very high, apparently). But I also had another phone interview this morning, and it was very positive, and I must contact the school again come June, to see what they have on offer for me; in that case it would be either senior teacher or (hear hear) assistant director! Let's not get too excited, though!
It is a relief to know that module 3 has started off well, and I am now preparing for LSA3, and I mean that I am practising writing lessons...of course writing is one of those skills that students never want to practice, even IELTS students think they can get away with it. But I will get them used to a writing lesson a week from now on, so that by the time of the observation they will be ready! Fingers crossed, again, though, since come next observation I could have a completely different class, either in terms of students (it's stage test time next week, which means that some of them may move to L4) or in terms of level (I may be moved to another class). Oh, well. At least I will have some practice on it and will be more prepared.
Other than that...Well, depression is back, although not too heavily, and the gym is scaring it away, together with my strengthened will power. I won't go down that easily this time. It is only sad that I should let this thing go against my will, and only to save my life, so to speak, when all I wanted to do was giving a hug and offer support to a person who won't accept it out of some misplaced ideas of right and wrong. Still, I've done all that I could and more. It breaks my heart, but it's for the best.
But it's Chinese new year on Sunday, and my students are set on making me a choc-a-holic, clearly! Lovely L5, all of them. Although I hate teaching long courses in the afternoon as I never know what to do, and apparently I cannot use the book for EAP? Why is that?
Anyway, the weekend is going to be dedicated to a study of needs analysis and diagnostic tests, to..test on my L5 next week, before preparing section 2 of my extended assignment. The good news is, I just got back section 1, and my tutor says I'm off to a good start...phew! Also, all I had to do was ask a couple of people in the office and...two emails with sample of needs analysis questionnaires, and a teacher who was still looking for more samples as I was leaving the school, muttering something about how he won't get any sleep if he can't find them... I always find it amazing when people are so nice to me. It's...moving.
In other news, I've got a job offer with interesting future opportunities, so: London here I come! It's official, I am moving the the city by the end of June, and will work there all summer, then let's keep our fingers crossed and see if I can stay in the same school (and chances are very high, apparently). But I also had another phone interview this morning, and it was very positive, and I must contact the school again come June, to see what they have on offer for me; in that case it would be either senior teacher or (hear hear) assistant director! Let's not get too excited, though!
It is a relief to know that module 3 has started off well, and I am now preparing for LSA3, and I mean that I am practising writing lessons...of course writing is one of those skills that students never want to practice, even IELTS students think they can get away with it. But I will get them used to a writing lesson a week from now on, so that by the time of the observation they will be ready! Fingers crossed, again, though, since come next observation I could have a completely different class, either in terms of students (it's stage test time next week, which means that some of them may move to L4) or in terms of level (I may be moved to another class). Oh, well. At least I will have some practice on it and will be more prepared.
Other than that...Well, depression is back, although not too heavily, and the gym is scaring it away, together with my strengthened will power. I won't go down that easily this time. It is only sad that I should let this thing go against my will, and only to save my life, so to speak, when all I wanted to do was giving a hug and offer support to a person who won't accept it out of some misplaced ideas of right and wrong. Still, I've done all that I could and more. It breaks my heart, but it's for the best.
Sunday, February 07, 2010
Observations and a pub meeting
...So, LSA2 passed. Very close to a merit too, apparently, if it weren't that my paperwork sucks (yes, so my PDA should comment on...how I cannot master the Cambridge-speak). I'm really relieved, although the comment from the tutor, that I should see the lesson in retrospective with a bit of emotional distance, is not really a great help: after all, I taught the lesson, and the way I feel after teaching it is just naturally influencing my judgement, no matter what. In the previous lesson I was relieved that the students had reacted a bit better and thought that everything had gone fine, only to find out that I had just passed, and this time I had battled with stress for three days, and nightmares, and all that, convinced that it was a fail, when instead it would have been a merit, even. How can I be unbiased when it is me we are discussing?
Anyhow, lesson passed, fingers crossed for the assignment, since things seem to have changed at the DELTA, so the pub meeting we had scheduled after the session on Thursday, just to share some info that we may have learnt separately during out course, became instead a communal rant on what the hell is going on now. And the reason for this is that we ALL have to resubmit our experimental practice assignment, an assignment previously described as "impossible to fail". But what drives us mad is some of the criteria for this resubmission: in my case, just to mention one point, there is a comment that criticises my choice to submit the article in a format different than the original...Now, having submitted the assignment electronically, what was I supposed to do, buy a scanner, scan the article, and attach it??? And there are other idiocies like this, where fastidiousness seems to be the main criteria of evaluation. This is simply unacceptable, especially when we haven't really had much to work on in terms of instructions, and receiving feedback AFTERWARDS is not really useful, since, for example, in the case of the lessons, if something is wrong in a listening lesson I will probably not need to know it during a writing lesson, and so on. Shouldn't we rather have some more criteria on what will be judged in a lesson? Example two is the fantastic "whatever you do is wrong" point: S. spent an unplanned 3 minutes explaining a thing to a student during her lesson, thus responding to students' need. Wrong. A student in D.'s class asked a question and she decided to put the answer off to a later point in the lesson: also wrong, because she didn't respond to student's needs. So, what exactly are we to do?
Well, there are lots of things on our mind now, with LSA3 in a month, and the ongoing module 3 that is already causing problems (my bibliography contains books that I cannot find in the library, and the tutor must be mad if he thinks that I'm going to spend 200£ on books that I will use this once and never again; S.'s bibliography came on the day we were supposed to hand in the introduction...), so I must say that we are all pretty pissed off, and on the verge of a riot. Interesting, that's for sure.
In other news, blogspot is refusing to show me the font, which means that I cannot choose how the post will be published; at the same time, Word is refusing to let me copy (or cut) and paste my entries to the blog itself, which means spending hours writing online...so not good for my balance (the account balance, that is).
Well, more news to come: now back to the topic of my next observation, which is writing (speaking is too unpredictable). Oh, yes: we've just found out that LSA3, assignment and all, is going to Cambridge too, so that IS the lesson that we MUST pass, not just any internally observed lesson (as in, passing LSA1 and 2 was not that necessary then). Great. Anything else?
Anyhow, lesson passed, fingers crossed for the assignment, since things seem to have changed at the DELTA, so the pub meeting we had scheduled after the session on Thursday, just to share some info that we may have learnt separately during out course, became instead a communal rant on what the hell is going on now. And the reason for this is that we ALL have to resubmit our experimental practice assignment, an assignment previously described as "impossible to fail". But what drives us mad is some of the criteria for this resubmission: in my case, just to mention one point, there is a comment that criticises my choice to submit the article in a format different than the original...Now, having submitted the assignment electronically, what was I supposed to do, buy a scanner, scan the article, and attach it??? And there are other idiocies like this, where fastidiousness seems to be the main criteria of evaluation. This is simply unacceptable, especially when we haven't really had much to work on in terms of instructions, and receiving feedback AFTERWARDS is not really useful, since, for example, in the case of the lessons, if something is wrong in a listening lesson I will probably not need to know it during a writing lesson, and so on. Shouldn't we rather have some more criteria on what will be judged in a lesson? Example two is the fantastic "whatever you do is wrong" point: S. spent an unplanned 3 minutes explaining a thing to a student during her lesson, thus responding to students' need. Wrong. A student in D.'s class asked a question and she decided to put the answer off to a later point in the lesson: also wrong, because she didn't respond to student's needs. So, what exactly are we to do?
Well, there are lots of things on our mind now, with LSA3 in a month, and the ongoing module 3 that is already causing problems (my bibliography contains books that I cannot find in the library, and the tutor must be mad if he thinks that I'm going to spend 200£ on books that I will use this once and never again; S.'s bibliography came on the day we were supposed to hand in the introduction...), so I must say that we are all pretty pissed off, and on the verge of a riot. Interesting, that's for sure.
In other news, blogspot is refusing to show me the font, which means that I cannot choose how the post will be published; at the same time, Word is refusing to let me copy (or cut) and paste my entries to the blog itself, which means spending hours writing online...so not good for my balance (the account balance, that is).
Well, more news to come: now back to the topic of my next observation, which is writing (speaking is too unpredictable). Oh, yes: we've just found out that LSA3, assignment and all, is going to Cambridge too, so that IS the lesson that we MUST pass, not just any internally observed lesson (as in, passing LSA1 and 2 was not that necessary then). Great. Anything else?
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