It's all about skimming

Or so it seems.
Welcome to the IELTS (low) class, where we patronise students with study skills they already have, or they have already learnt about because they have been on the course for so long that they've seen all that could possibly be seen.
The problem is, they still don't get it.
So, first of all we have an open discussion to brainstorm good ideas and bad ideas to apply on the reading part. Among the good ideas, we have things like:
- see if the title can give some information on what the article will be about (i.e. activate schemata, and there goes the spidergram on the board);
- read the first sentence of every paragraph;
- use illustrations to help you understand.
Among the bad things, we have:
- underline names and dates (that is scanning, my dear, not relevant or useful here);
- get stuck on unknown vocabulary.

So, everything is clear, they look almost bored when they tell me the do's and dont's, and so we proceed to do the reading, where I give them 3 minutes to skim the text (literally 30 lines) and produce a sentence that summarises it. It's about Malcom X and MLK, and some differences and similarities, so it's pretty clear, and you know what happens next?

They all get stuck on unknown vocabulary.
The all underline, no, worse, CIRCLE names and dates AND the unknown vocabulary.
The even start looking for translations in their evil electronic dictionaries.
And three minutes later, they haven't got a clue of what the article is about...but have a whole list of words to ask me!

And tomorrow: WRITING! Are you ready?

On the other hand, morning class: a gem. Dictogloss: a success. But this will be another story - LSA3, background assignment, is calling...

This is why I love my job

"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".

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.

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.

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?

What not to do during an observed lesson...

Ahem...where do I start?

Clearly, the first requirement would be to have the class that you were actually meant to have up to a week before said observation, and for which you have structured a whole 2500-word essay, devised a complete 60-minute lesson plan,including a cover sheet with problems, assumptions, class profile, language analysis, and you have also created the materials from scratch...yes, that would be ideal.
If, however, three days before going back to work you find out that what you are going to have is two classes of German teenagers, on a forced study holiday, on a forced business English syllabus, well, then...maybe this is a good time for that talk with God that you have always put off for lack of time or will.
However, said God is kind of angry for being put aside while you were too busy working, preparing, running, and generally trying to survive on no salary whatsoever and another 800 quid to pay for your diploma, therefore He is going to have a lie-in on the morning of your observation. You expected that, so once more it's a rolling up of sleeves and breathe deeply before starting the lesson with an unknown class.
Once you realise that your material is too optimistic for this class, and that they require a bit more help, forget your assessor and just go with the flow: play the clip one more time, stopping at the important bits so they understand properly; write down a couple of useful words in no particular order, do a bit of CCQ, then move on to the grammar noticing part. Now, this is where you may need to actually help them out at the beginning, but they are quite good, and it seems that slowly, very slowly, they are coming out of their teacher-is-god mindset, and are cooperating to finish the task. Breathe in, breathe out, keep going.
Now, it's time for the guided practice: it should have started a minimum of 7 to 10 minutes ago, but as you will dutifully point out in your evaluation form, you have been responding to your students' needs, not messing around wasting time, so, breather in, breathe out, let's begin the practice, and go around the classroom checking, monitoring, chatting with the students. It seems to be working, very slowly, and at this point the assessor leaves the room, and you can finally collapse in a heap on the floor, before resuming your smiling self and moving on with the practice, and a casual chat with your class...

Feedback to come on Monday, and forecast says it's not going to be positive, unfortunately. No matter the fact that I was teaching an unknown class, that I was so stressed I could barely breathe, that I positively responded to the students' needs and ultimately they used the language appropriately, the assessor will see my messy boardwork (which I had to restructure while the students were working in pairs), my casual instructions (although clearer than usual, I must say), and my running overtime, so that all she could see was the beginning of the guided practice - although I did point out that the students were able to use the target language appropriately by the end of the real lesson, i.e. 90 minutes, because come on, in real life a lesson is not bloody 60 minutes, it's a whole hour and a half, so why messing us around?
Anyway. As I said, I don't expect a positive feedback, in fact I expect to have failed this one. How annoying, especially because it was not (entirely) my fault: if I had had my class as expected, things would have gone fine, because I know those guys and I know that they wouldn't have had problems with that lesson. But clearly, the Delta people are not going to consider that...

So, for now, let's go back to EAP and how to begin the assignment: considering how every book on EAP about writing skills puts writer's block for an introduction as one of the most common problems, perhaps this is not a good idea?

All work and no play...no, the other way around...

Well, after a very relaxing time filled with snow, food, friends, lazy walks and shopping...back to work, back to reality.

And back to the fantastic world of EFL, specifically EAP, the subject of my extended assignment! Well, I've got lots to read about it, and no idea of how to structure the essay, so...good!
At the same time, I should really start with my LSA2, and so far, having been back for a few days, all I've done is..the skeleton. At least I'm not working at school, so I can actually say that I can write the whole thing in a week because I've got nothing else to do!

In other news, there is a lot on my mind. So much that I can barely express it here. In the end, the solution is a class of body balance (tomorrow: dance jam!), a walk to town, a couple of emails, and lots of music. It usually works.

Happy new year, then. May it be a successful one.