Where had I left off? Oh, ages ago. With a job that was consuming my patience and driving me hysterical with the amount of stuff to do, and a terrible situation house-wise, forced to live in a shared place…but let’s not dwell on the past…
The situation needs to be updated to 2012, right now, February, with me typing away sitting on the sofa of a lovely, tiny, tidy flat just outside Trento, in northern Italy, where I have just moved as, finally, I have found a serious job in the Italian TEFL world. First of all, I left the terrible pretense of a job that I had in Bergamo up to a month ago, the one where I did the interview in September, they offered the position, then made me wait a month before calling to say that they were organizing the induction, then arranging the induction as starting on the day of my birthday, thank you very much, thus making me waste a whole day listening to endless chatter that a CELTA student would find boring, imagine someone with a bit of experience. There was then another whole-day meeting, which included a fake observation, thus arranged:
Here is what we would like you to do, pages 11 and 12 from this book you’ve never used before, to teach to a student you’ve never met before, who is the principal’s husband and other owner of the school, so, no pressure there, and you’re going to teach him for 15 minute tops. Oh, by the way, he’s a pre-intermediate, but not really, but you’ll find out tomorrow during the “lesson”, when he’ll be so slow that he won’t understand basic questions like “what time is it?”.
The comments they made afterwards regarded, mostly, the fact that I was sitting with my legs crossed, hence showing a non-aperture, or whatever… the notion that I was wearing a mini-skirt then, and was just trying to be a lady, rather than a truck driver, seemed to escape them…
Following this joke of observation, there was another induction day, where the principal had us listen to the story of her life and of the school, and then another 2 weeks before she actually gave me some work to do…and by some work I mean 6 hours, spread between 3 days, at a company 65 km away from my hometown, which required me to drive all the way there and back three times a week, to teach people who didn’t want to be taught, and who, from one week to the other, wouldn’t remember what we had done…oh joy. We did one week and then Christmas came, which was a nice time of gym, and chores, and friends, and all that, and when January started I was so frustrated at the thought of more wasted days driving all the way to that company… I managed to get an interview for this prestigious school in Trento, which I did entirely on the phone while driving to work, and the week after I anticipated my unhappiness at the current work situation to the people in Bergamo, who replied something like “what the hell do you want from us, you were fine when we spoke the first time 4 months ago, before petrol prices went sky-high, a thing that we haven’t actually noticed and even if we had, well your problem not ours. We might and might not have more hours for you, but hey, you’ll have to be patient, and like a brand new graduate with no experience, work these ridiculous 6 hours a week and depend on your parents till kingdom comes”. I might have paraphrased here.
I went to Trento at the end of that same week, spent almost 2 hours being seriously interviewed, and by the end of the day I had the job. Needless to say I immediately emailed the people in Bergamo to tell them to bugger off, and I started working out stuff in Trento. I started at the end of January, on a full time, lots of money, lots of perks basis, and I even had the accommodation paid for the first two weeks, while I was waiting for my lovely flat to be free. And here I am now.
My timetable is over-satisfactory, if such a word exists, and I have a wide range of classes, abilities, ages, and levels. I teach children twice a week, a challenge I am glad to face, and they are sweet and lovely, I have my teens for FCE and CAE (the CAE guys are a wonder, so great! The FCE are new so I can’t say much yet), I am going to have more adults for evening classes, including one with the manager of the school, who scares me to bits but is a really nice lady, and last week I’ve had more challenges as I’ve had to cover for a colleague, who is sick this week as well, so I’m assuming that I’ll cover all her classes again. This means using a couple of books I’ve never used before, as they are 14 year-old kids, and teaching KET as well, where I don’t have a lot of experience but am glad I can finally get some.
The school provides lots of training and workshops, and soon I’ll be working as a supervisor for Cambridge exams, and that’s one of the reasons they’re keen to have me, since I have a useful driving licence that can take me places… plus in November they’re planning to make me do the examiner course, which I am really really eager to take, so even though, regrettably, the contract is until th end of June, to be renewed in either July or September, depending if I want to stick around for summer camps or not, so even though the contract is a bit funny, not only does it include perks of regular contracts such as “tredicesima” and TFR, a thing unheard of in the TEFL world, like sickness and maternity leave, but both the academic manager and DOS, and the “real” manager are very keen to keep me on, so yay!
It means the opportunity to grow, professionally, and be independent doing what I like best, and being in my home country, independent enough to have this little flat that, for the first time in my life, I don’t have to share with anyone. And this alone is worth everything.
Well, this was a bit of summary of the way things have evolved recently. I am waiting to receive my DELTA results, which should arrive this week I imagine, being mid-february already, and have a few things to do in town, such as joining a gym, setting up an internet connection, and so on. Step by step. It’s all so cool. So cool.
And now, time for tea.
