Well, after much thinking, or shall I say, not so much thinking after all. Work being hectic, running taking over, a lot of reading to catch up with the couple of years I had to neglect it, more creative writing to do, which gives me more satisfaction than feeling the bundle of a "productive" blog such as this...ultimately, I would rather stick to my job in real life, and have fun, and learn new things, there, without feeling the obligation to write them down, and then feeling guilty if I don't have the time and I prefer a book, or a quiet hour of creative writing instead.
So there. Walking teacher (by now running teacher, I should say, considering the weekly mileage I'm doing) stops here, and my writing me goes on with different projects.
I'll be here from now on:
http://notadaywithoutaword.blogspot.it/
So long.
Sunday, June 10, 2012
Sunday, April 22, 2012
The advanced conversation dilemma...
The workshop was interesting and useful, and I finally have a few minutes to jot down the ideas that we discussed:
- the importance of grammar in an advanced conversation class (a starting point? something to revise occasionally? bit and pieces to use to conclude the lesson?)
- the structure of a conversation lesson vs. a "normal" lesson (PPP, or whatever methodology, or the old "here's an article/a listening/some random or topic-based vocabulary: let's talk about it"?)
- interaction with the students and the role of the teacher, plus what to expect from the students (in real life people don't necessarily participate actively in a conversation, with the same percentage of talking time: so why trying that in class?)
- and useful ideas from some books, which I won't mention here mostly because I am writing from memory and apart from the old "Discussions that work", I can't really think of the other texts.
Ultimately, some interesting stuff. Still, I am glad that my class is nearly over, with May 2nd their last lesson: phew...
- the importance of grammar in an advanced conversation class (a starting point? something to revise occasionally? bit and pieces to use to conclude the lesson?)
- the structure of a conversation lesson vs. a "normal" lesson (PPP, or whatever methodology, or the old "here's an article/a listening/some random or topic-based vocabulary: let's talk about it"?)
- interaction with the students and the role of the teacher, plus what to expect from the students (in real life people don't necessarily participate actively in a conversation, with the same percentage of talking time: so why trying that in class?)
- and useful ideas from some books, which I won't mention here mostly because I am writing from memory and apart from the old "Discussions that work", I can't really think of the other texts.
Ultimately, some interesting stuff. Still, I am glad that my class is nearly over, with May 2nd their last lesson: phew...
Wednesday, April 11, 2012
One post a month is as much as I can manage...
Really, I am trying...
Anyway, back to work after an Easter break, the first in 4 years of TEFL work...wow. Much needed and certainly deserved after the marathons of March with exams, covers, children left right and centre (although the new class, a group of 10-year olds, is gorgeous and so sweet, I would just cuddle them all. They should never grow from that age).
Well I am back and trying, and failing as always, to prepare alternative, more useful stuff for my classes, stuff that they can actually use every day. Language of the street, so to speak, the way I have learnt most of my English too. Like today, my elementary class, revising furniture and stuff...we did a short activity on renting a flat, and at least there was some real language, but I always feel it's not enough. And with my wonderful Friday night class, they are so amazing, I wish I could do more, like showing clips and discussing features of language, but we only have 2 hours a week and a tight schedule based on the coursebook...plus I have mid-course tests too, which I'm not too happy about, except in the case of my Tuesday night class, which I positively hate...
Well other than that, I have 4 hours of workshop tomorrow, so hopefully I'll be able to add a post quite soon, subject: advanced conversation classes. Not that my contribution tomorrow will be that great, my adcon guys are sad puppets who want me to speak and have nothing to say, if we ignore the one guy who hates his job, hates Trento, hates his life, and despises the fact that he has to arrange his holidays around his son's (or sons?) school timetable...ehm...you should have thought about it before deciding to have a family, man! God, people who are lucky never realise it...
Enough, I'll try to post by next week: I can do this!
Anyway, back to work after an Easter break, the first in 4 years of TEFL work...wow. Much needed and certainly deserved after the marathons of March with exams, covers, children left right and centre (although the new class, a group of 10-year olds, is gorgeous and so sweet, I would just cuddle them all. They should never grow from that age).
Well I am back and trying, and failing as always, to prepare alternative, more useful stuff for my classes, stuff that they can actually use every day. Language of the street, so to speak, the way I have learnt most of my English too. Like today, my elementary class, revising furniture and stuff...we did a short activity on renting a flat, and at least there was some real language, but I always feel it's not enough. And with my wonderful Friday night class, they are so amazing, I wish I could do more, like showing clips and discussing features of language, but we only have 2 hours a week and a tight schedule based on the coursebook...plus I have mid-course tests too, which I'm not too happy about, except in the case of my Tuesday night class, which I positively hate...
Well other than that, I have 4 hours of workshop tomorrow, so hopefully I'll be able to add a post quite soon, subject: advanced conversation classes. Not that my contribution tomorrow will be that great, my adcon guys are sad puppets who want me to speak and have nothing to say, if we ignore the one guy who hates his job, hates Trento, hates his life, and despises the fact that he has to arrange his holidays around his son's (or sons?) school timetable...ehm...you should have thought about it before deciding to have a family, man! God, people who are lucky never realise it...
Enough, I'll try to post by next week: I can do this!
Sunday, March 11, 2012
Trying to catch up...
Well, I am trying, indeed... Things have been hectic from the start, with only the first week a "normal" one...then it's been combining my timetable with a million covers, and more covers, and finally a teacher deciding to go on maternity leave some 5 months earlier than planned, although I totally sympathize with her choice, since now I have her classes and they're simply scattered around the week, making it hard for a "normal" person, I can only imagine the strain on a pregnant woman! Anyway, at least they're actually lovely classes which I am enjoying thoroughly, and even though I'm annoyed that the last one is on a freaking Friday night until 9 (hence no returning home every other week for band practice..), I certainly like them more than my kiddies (although only 3 weeks left of them, thank god) and than my elementary class, which I would enjoy, I would, I promise, but my boss is in it! And she scares me!! Anyway... at least it's only once a week for a couple of hours, so it's not that bad.
I am starting a new class of kiddies tomorrow, real kiddies these ones, not the 11 and 12 I am currently dealing with once a week, but 8 and 9 years old! Their teachers must be off their heads, because the programme they would have liked us to prepare includes stuff like "learning how to get around in London, and how to ask information"...ehm....to 9-year old children?? Would you really send them around London, of all places, on their own??? Seriously, this is amazing, and not in a good way. Claire from Bournemouth, the young learner expert, has already had a class in this school, and unsurprisingly she told me that they don't know a single thing, they can barely ask you "what's your name", and maybe a few other simple questions...I doubt that in 6 lessons (because thank god it's only 6 lesson with them, and only an hour each) we'll get much further than "what's your favourite food" or something... Anyway, I thought I would maybe start looking at things today, but as it is, I can't be bothered, and since tomorrow it's the only class I have, I can get to school at 12, prepare a few things there, and then leave by 13 (the lesson is at 14)...wish me luck though, I have no idea how it will go.
And this probably what drives me mad, that I have all this kiddies classes with no idea how to work with them! I think next academic year I'll ask for two things: one, no classes that end after 8pm...mostly because getting the bus back home later than 8.30 freaks me out, too many weirdos, drunks, and generally scary people around unleashed...and two, no kiddies please! Or a limited number, not 6 classes! I have decided that I DON'T want to be a young learner expert, no sir, I'd rather stick to exam expert, that suits me fine thank you very much.
And this is actually all for now...I would love to post on ideas on how to teach young learners and whatnot, but I simply have no idea how I managed these past month and a half with them, and not even sure I've done such a good job of it, in spite of the smiles and thank-you's of the teachers, and great appreciation of the material and activities I bring to the class...It's certainly been hard work, and I keep feeling that I am not prepared for it, and that while I would like to be more knowledgeable, on the other hand I simply don't care. Mostly because teaching kids has never been my aspiration, I've always preferred teens or young adults, or adults, even the annoying ones, even the fastidious ones.
Anyway, this is all for now, as I said. Due to lack of time and on Saturday examinations, I wonder if I'll ever be able to keep this blog regularly as I had hoped I would be able to do now that the DELTA is finally done, and with a clean pass, and that I have a bit more of a regular job...but we'll see, as always...
I am starting a new class of kiddies tomorrow, real kiddies these ones, not the 11 and 12 I am currently dealing with once a week, but 8 and 9 years old! Their teachers must be off their heads, because the programme they would have liked us to prepare includes stuff like "learning how to get around in London, and how to ask information"...ehm....to 9-year old children?? Would you really send them around London, of all places, on their own??? Seriously, this is amazing, and not in a good way. Claire from Bournemouth, the young learner expert, has already had a class in this school, and unsurprisingly she told me that they don't know a single thing, they can barely ask you "what's your name", and maybe a few other simple questions...I doubt that in 6 lessons (because thank god it's only 6 lesson with them, and only an hour each) we'll get much further than "what's your favourite food" or something... Anyway, I thought I would maybe start looking at things today, but as it is, I can't be bothered, and since tomorrow it's the only class I have, I can get to school at 12, prepare a few things there, and then leave by 13 (the lesson is at 14)...wish me luck though, I have no idea how it will go.
And this probably what drives me mad, that I have all this kiddies classes with no idea how to work with them! I think next academic year I'll ask for two things: one, no classes that end after 8pm...mostly because getting the bus back home later than 8.30 freaks me out, too many weirdos, drunks, and generally scary people around unleashed...and two, no kiddies please! Or a limited number, not 6 classes! I have decided that I DON'T want to be a young learner expert, no sir, I'd rather stick to exam expert, that suits me fine thank you very much.
And this is actually all for now...I would love to post on ideas on how to teach young learners and whatnot, but I simply have no idea how I managed these past month and a half with them, and not even sure I've done such a good job of it, in spite of the smiles and thank-you's of the teachers, and great appreciation of the material and activities I bring to the class...It's certainly been hard work, and I keep feeling that I am not prepared for it, and that while I would like to be more knowledgeable, on the other hand I simply don't care. Mostly because teaching kids has never been my aspiration, I've always preferred teens or young adults, or adults, even the annoying ones, even the fastidious ones.
Anyway, this is all for now, as I said. Due to lack of time and on Saturday examinations, I wonder if I'll ever be able to keep this blog regularly as I had hoped I would be able to do now that the DELTA is finally done, and with a clean pass, and that I have a bit more of a regular job...but we'll see, as always...
Monday, February 13, 2012
I'm back: new year, new...everything!
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.
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.
Friday, November 25, 2011
Module three - completed?
I would have loved to copy and paste the whole assignment here, as evidence that I am finally done...or so I hope, since the final draft has been submitted, and I'm only waiting for some final comments from my tutor. It's been long and almost boring at times, showing that Cambridge only wants you to mention as many people as possible in a limited space, so rather than a useful way to assess that you now know how to design/develop a course, it looks and feels like an exercise in summarising concepts and naming people. Anyway. This time, with the new school, things have been a lot better, tons of input, a looooot of feedback, and my bibliography includes about 30 texts, so everything looks quite nice. The deadline for the final submission is in a couple of weeks, so I am pretty confident that things will work out this time, and I will have completed this thing once and for all.
As I said, I would have loved to copy and paste the assignment, but the website won't let me do it, so...nevermind.
This is now the time to think of other things, such as...getting my life back, somehow!
As I said, I would have loved to copy and paste the assignment, but the website won't let me do it, so...nevermind.
This is now the time to think of other things, such as...getting my life back, somehow!
Saturday, September 03, 2011
Module three is back
Module three has begun. And what a difference! For a start, I have downloaded pages and pages of information, guidelines, explanation of how everything works, and what I am supposed to do, and how, and what I can or have to read, and so on. That is already a big difference with the zero-information I received when I did the diploma at the other school.
Second, the deadlines. By tomorrow I have to submit the proposal grid of my assignment, which makes me focus clearly on what I will write about, and what I’ll have to consider. So my mind is already working, thinking, preparing. It does feel good, it makes me feel more prepared than I was.
My specialism this time is going to be teaching one-to-one (1to1). I have had enough of EAP, which, although useful, can be a bit boring after a while, and I certainly don’t feel like wandering into that field again; also, it makes me feel like there’s a lot of theory, case studies, and whatnot to consider, enough to go for a proper MA in that area, rather than a humble 4500-word assignment.
So, 1to1 it is. It also makes more sense, since I am moving to a place where most of my lessons will be in this format, and lots of students, I expect, will also be quite low level; a standard learner profile, then: professional, 30+, needs English for work, has been out of education for a while and whatever he knew of the language has long gone. Learner needs, wants, lacks, to be determined, although for my “subject” I already know…
I have managed to scan a few pages from some books that will be useful for the research and the course design itself, and am currently waiting to receive yet another Amazon order with the one book I think will help me understand and work on the assignment properly. I have tons of photocopies and books at home too, I can’t believe the money I have invested in my professional development so far…all the books that I’ve bought, and how many have I managed to read properly?
One.
But things are going to change soon.
Second, the deadlines. By tomorrow I have to submit the proposal grid of my assignment, which makes me focus clearly on what I will write about, and what I’ll have to consider. So my mind is already working, thinking, preparing. It does feel good, it makes me feel more prepared than I was.
My specialism this time is going to be teaching one-to-one (1to1). I have had enough of EAP, which, although useful, can be a bit boring after a while, and I certainly don’t feel like wandering into that field again; also, it makes me feel like there’s a lot of theory, case studies, and whatnot to consider, enough to go for a proper MA in that area, rather than a humble 4500-word assignment.
So, 1to1 it is. It also makes more sense, since I am moving to a place where most of my lessons will be in this format, and lots of students, I expect, will also be quite low level; a standard learner profile, then: professional, 30+, needs English for work, has been out of education for a while and whatever he knew of the language has long gone. Learner needs, wants, lacks, to be determined, although for my “subject” I already know…
I have managed to scan a few pages from some books that will be useful for the research and the course design itself, and am currently waiting to receive yet another Amazon order with the one book I think will help me understand and work on the assignment properly. I have tons of photocopies and books at home too, I can’t believe the money I have invested in my professional development so far…all the books that I’ve bought, and how many have I managed to read properly?
One.
But things are going to change soon.
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