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...
Showing posts with label about teaching. Show all posts
Showing posts with label about teaching. Show all posts
Sunday, April 22, 2012
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.
Sunday, August 28, 2011
3 days to go
Really, I can't wait.
It's been the longest summer, and one that I have actually enjoyed, despite the high amount of stress, the unbelievable number of people around, the massive workload we have all been subjected to for the past 3 months. Unfairfly, the AY teachers are now back to full time teaching, which IS unfair, as they are basically just squeezing the life out of us just because the contract allows them to.
So, Wednesday is my last day. I have decided that in order to finish the Delta I need to take time off, as I couldn't manage this pace at work AND combine it with the tight deadlines of the distance Delta...but I do need a full time job to pay the rent and all, although the pay is ridiculous. Anyway, considering that I have also fallen into the trap of a nervous breakdown, understandably I might say, I DO need time off to recover, study, and not be so lonely and stressed during the long dark winter months.
On the upside, apart from going back home and having time to study and complete the dip properly, there is also the fact that for once I'll be able to actually revise and get back in touch with all my TEFL books and photocopies that I have quickly skimmed while I was studying for the dip, but which I've never had a chance to really digest. This also means that finally I'll be able to keep a proper teaching blog, the way I haven't managed for this whole year, regrettably.
So, I'll be back soon, with all things TEFL.
It's been the longest summer, and one that I have actually enjoyed, despite the high amount of stress, the unbelievable number of people around, the massive workload we have all been subjected to for the past 3 months. Unfairfly, the AY teachers are now back to full time teaching, which IS unfair, as they are basically just squeezing the life out of us just because the contract allows them to.
So, Wednesday is my last day. I have decided that in order to finish the Delta I need to take time off, as I couldn't manage this pace at work AND combine it with the tight deadlines of the distance Delta...but I do need a full time job to pay the rent and all, although the pay is ridiculous. Anyway, considering that I have also fallen into the trap of a nervous breakdown, understandably I might say, I DO need time off to recover, study, and not be so lonely and stressed during the long dark winter months.
On the upside, apart from going back home and having time to study and complete the dip properly, there is also the fact that for once I'll be able to actually revise and get back in touch with all my TEFL books and photocopies that I have quickly skimmed while I was studying for the dip, but which I've never had a chance to really digest. This also means that finally I'll be able to keep a proper teaching blog, the way I haven't managed for this whole year, regrettably.
So, I'll be back soon, with all things TEFL.
Saturday, July 23, 2011
Several months later...
I am an AY teacher, and work my ass off about 45 hours a week between planning, teaching, doing lots of admin, observing other teachers, and performing random tasks as they spring in my ADOS's evil mind - no, before any misunderstanding occurs, this is the way it works:
5.05 on Friday - I have nothing left to do, have worked so much I can barely remember my name, I consider leaving 10 minutes early, which would be the first time in a week. I know on the DOS/ADOS's office door, go in, and say: Do you think I can go now?
Guess what the answer is (and here I paraphrase): "fuck no, I'd rather chew my arms off than let you leave one minute earlier than what you should, in fact I'll find some random useless thing for you to do to keep you here as long as possible".
And so there I was, an hour later, finally taking off my badge and leaving...
Other than that, it's a great job, I enjoy every minute of it, despite my constant complaining, but it's only letting the steam off, I love what I do, I love my class, the admin work which gives me more responsability and makes me very proud of what I am, and it's a good improvement in my career.
Having said that, I wish the weekend was longer...
5.05 on Friday - I have nothing left to do, have worked so much I can barely remember my name, I consider leaving 10 minutes early, which would be the first time in a week. I know on the DOS/ADOS's office door, go in, and say: Do you think I can go now?
Guess what the answer is (and here I paraphrase): "fuck no, I'd rather chew my arms off than let you leave one minute earlier than what you should, in fact I'll find some random useless thing for you to do to keep you here as long as possible".
And so there I was, an hour later, finally taking off my badge and leaving...
Other than that, it's a great job, I enjoy every minute of it, despite my constant complaining, but it's only letting the steam off, I love what I do, I love my class, the admin work which gives me more responsability and makes me very proud of what I am, and it's a good improvement in my career.
Having said that, I wish the weekend was longer...
Wednesday, November 10, 2010
More on LSA4 - reload, and a rant on the Cambridge people
The assignment is nearly done: I am at the stage where you have analysed the topic and you have presented the potential issues regarding teaching it, the learners, and so on.
I can't stop thinking of the appaling essay that I have recently read, which was beyond fail, it was simply unbelievable: things thrown in with no logical order, random paragraphs, only two references, spelling mistakes, NO reference whatsoever to any materials, the bibliography a simple list of titles and authors where the "An A-Z of ELT" had become simply "ELZ", and I CAN'T BELIEVE THAT PASSED, AND MINE DIDN'T!
Anyway, the worksheet is nearly complete too, and tomorrow I am going to see who my students will be; I am just going to find out names and nationalities, and maybe arrange to observe a lesson on Tuesday, so I can get an idea for the class profile. Little by little, again, things are shaping up, except it feels that it will be right, and then there's this horrible feeling that somehow Cambridge wants the moon from me, and I don't have it. And I would love to show them my feedback forms from all my previous jobs, and my promotion to senior teacher on day two of my job last summer, and the beautiful feedback from all my students, which counts so much more than their stupid boxes to tick. But of course, if I want the diploma, I have to speak their own metalanguage, and try and think in their own little world, where nothing real happens. Sad people. I am pretty sure that none of them remembers what it's like to teach, and none of them would be able to teach a class properly. Of course, in theory they are geniuses, and they know their Thornbury and Parrot backwards. But put them in a class of lazy Arabs, or of traditional Germans, or forgetful Italian and Spanish,then we'll see.
Man, when is this going to end.
I can't stop thinking of the appaling essay that I have recently read, which was beyond fail, it was simply unbelievable: things thrown in with no logical order, random paragraphs, only two references, spelling mistakes, NO reference whatsoever to any materials, the bibliography a simple list of titles and authors where the "An A-Z of ELT" had become simply "ELZ", and I CAN'T BELIEVE THAT PASSED, AND MINE DIDN'T!
Anyway, the worksheet is nearly complete too, and tomorrow I am going to see who my students will be; I am just going to find out names and nationalities, and maybe arrange to observe a lesson on Tuesday, so I can get an idea for the class profile. Little by little, again, things are shaping up, except it feels that it will be right, and then there's this horrible feeling that somehow Cambridge wants the moon from me, and I don't have it. And I would love to show them my feedback forms from all my previous jobs, and my promotion to senior teacher on day two of my job last summer, and the beautiful feedback from all my students, which counts so much more than their stupid boxes to tick. But of course, if I want the diploma, I have to speak their own metalanguage, and try and think in their own little world, where nothing real happens. Sad people. I am pretty sure that none of them remembers what it's like to teach, and none of them would be able to teach a class properly. Of course, in theory they are geniuses, and they know their Thornbury and Parrot backwards. But put them in a class of lazy Arabs, or of traditional Germans, or forgetful Italian and Spanish,then we'll see.
Man, when is this going to end.
Monday, November 08, 2010
On pronunciation
Focus of my LSA4 - reload...
I experimented the lesson with my last class, on Friday, my last day at work. The results are:
- counting the number of syllables: dangerous (two syllables?). I will need to make sure that no funny questions are asked, although, not being God, I hope the assessor will be lenient...
- deciding where the stress goes: better. As in, that's where I can see students struggle, so my theory holds, and we can have a chat and a revision and they all practice, so it's good. I think.
- deciding where the stress goes in a sentence: not so easy as it looks, and that's also good. Some students are quicker than others, and with a bit of support we all made it there.
- the practice with Spiderman: awesome. It was really good, andI had the right balance of boys and girls to play the part, it was fun, it was good, it ended well.
The whole lesson, with improvised material, took just over an hour, and considering that we were faffing about, it's ok. I could imagine the assessor walking out just as we were repeating the lines while watching the movie, and it would make a good impression, I believe...It's practice, it's doing what they were supposed to do, and so on...
Currently working on the assignment, which is being written by default, having written so many by now... The only thing is: will it be good enough? Who knows what these Cambridge people want. I can only do my best, again, and pray for the best.
Meanwhile, it's still raining, so my plans of morning gym and afternoon study have gone in the gutter, which means a whole day of study and preparation, followed by a day of nothing at all, by which I mean gym and a trip to London for tea and shopping...sounds nice, and it should help my gloomy mood too.
I experimented the lesson with my last class, on Friday, my last day at work. The results are:
- counting the number of syllables: dangerous (two syllables?). I will need to make sure that no funny questions are asked, although, not being God, I hope the assessor will be lenient...
- deciding where the stress goes: better. As in, that's where I can see students struggle, so my theory holds, and we can have a chat and a revision and they all practice, so it's good. I think.
- deciding where the stress goes in a sentence: not so easy as it looks, and that's also good. Some students are quicker than others, and with a bit of support we all made it there.
- the practice with Spiderman: awesome. It was really good, andI had the right balance of boys and girls to play the part, it was fun, it was good, it ended well.
The whole lesson, with improvised material, took just over an hour, and considering that we were faffing about, it's ok. I could imagine the assessor walking out just as we were repeating the lines while watching the movie, and it would make a good impression, I believe...It's practice, it's doing what they were supposed to do, and so on...
Currently working on the assignment, which is being written by default, having written so many by now... The only thing is: will it be good enough? Who knows what these Cambridge people want. I can only do my best, again, and pray for the best.
Meanwhile, it's still raining, so my plans of morning gym and afternoon study have gone in the gutter, which means a whole day of study and preparation, followed by a day of nothing at all, by which I mean gym and a trip to London for tea and shopping...sounds nice, and it should help my gloomy mood too.
Wednesday, November 03, 2010
No resources in the teacher's room...
Observation at school tomorrow morning…uff. The day before my contract terminates, and there is no work for me after that there, so why bother, I wonder? It just means wasting time on a silly lesson plan, which by the way is the same that the teachers had to prepare on the days of the BC inspection – and it’s funny, in a ridiculous way, because there is such a box as the timetable fit, Delta-style…except it’s silly to fill that in, and in total rebel-style, this is what I have written:
“The lesson opens the new unit in the book, having just finished unit 6. (…). In future lessons the focus will be on unit 8 (…)”.
…what else could I have written? It’s a short-term class, the two students who have been here the most have been here for 2 weeks and are leaving this week, so what’s the point?
This conveyor belt teaching style, with lack of extra resources, is very disappointing, and above all depressing: going by the book is boring and dry, especially when it’s a book that seems to focus on teenagers in lots of activities, and crams in grammar and random vocabulary, with silly exercises that are the opposite of memorable. And I can’t really integrate these lessons with anything, which is really sad, because I have no other resources in the teacher’s room, and clearly my own materials are somewhere else. And in any case it seems that the focus here is on a traditional teaching style, with lots of TTT, grammar, exercises, and the like of it. I’m not totally against it, but it feels dry, forced, useless: what’s the point of me explaining a million rules per lesson, and talking for most of the 3 hours we spend together, when I already know the grammar and can use it properly, and don’t need any speaking or listening practice, this being (sort of) my own language? Speak, dammit!
In other news, assignment for LSA4 – reload, is going ok, and with a lot of effort (and headache, backache, and sleepless nights) I will have the necessary materials to test the lesson on Friday. Shame that, as I said, these guys are not really great for speaking and practicing pronunciation… Well, at least I can get an idea of the time, then, and prepare lots of back-up, or simply change it to a 45 minute lesson.
So, back to study now, and two more days before leaving the school…
“The lesson opens the new unit in the book, having just finished unit 6. (…). In future lessons the focus will be on unit 8 (…)”.
…what else could I have written? It’s a short-term class, the two students who have been here the most have been here for 2 weeks and are leaving this week, so what’s the point?
This conveyor belt teaching style, with lack of extra resources, is very disappointing, and above all depressing: going by the book is boring and dry, especially when it’s a book that seems to focus on teenagers in lots of activities, and crams in grammar and random vocabulary, with silly exercises that are the opposite of memorable. And I can’t really integrate these lessons with anything, which is really sad, because I have no other resources in the teacher’s room, and clearly my own materials are somewhere else. And in any case it seems that the focus here is on a traditional teaching style, with lots of TTT, grammar, exercises, and the like of it. I’m not totally against it, but it feels dry, forced, useless: what’s the point of me explaining a million rules per lesson, and talking for most of the 3 hours we spend together, when I already know the grammar and can use it properly, and don’t need any speaking or listening practice, this being (sort of) my own language? Speak, dammit!
In other news, assignment for LSA4 – reload, is going ok, and with a lot of effort (and headache, backache, and sleepless nights) I will have the necessary materials to test the lesson on Friday. Shame that, as I said, these guys are not really great for speaking and practicing pronunciation… Well, at least I can get an idea of the time, then, and prepare lots of back-up, or simply change it to a 45 minute lesson.
So, back to study now, and two more days before leaving the school…
Sunday, October 31, 2010
Pronounciation and another observation
Long time no see, mostly because I've been busy teaching in London, teaching in Hull, finding another job in London, finding a place to live in London, trying to find more work...
LSA4 - reload, is coming soon. Having said that, I have no idea of when it will be, as far as I'm aware it may well be tomorrow, since my tutor only appears when he needs money or admin info from me, and seems to be in another country/world/planet any other time...
Anyway, I am working on an assignment on pronunciation and stress in connected speech, having been convinced that discourse is a suicidal decision (it did feel like that, but pronunciation is so scary). I have spent most of yesterday and today working on notes, preparing a provisional lesson plan, thinkink of resources. My weekly plan involves an equal amount of time spent on the assignment, on preparing the materials, the class profile (of a class I don't even have, this being my last week at the school and probably my last too, by the looks of it), and all that jazz.
The school I am working for is not exactly the best I have worked for...Week three of four, they take a picture of me to put on the teachers' wall, which makes me feel they are serious about keeping me on. They plan to observe me on Thursday, that is, the day before my last day of contract, which is either promising or really bad planning. They haven't given me a contract because the DOS is the only one who prepares them, and she's back on week four, which means I may as well have a contract on my last day of the contract, which somehow is hilarious. They say it will be no problem to find me a class for the observation, but they can't tell me if there will be work after November 5th (presumably because of some Guy Fawkes-like attack on the school that they have foreseen but which may not happen...). They have been giving me lots of work, which on the one hand is pretty cool as I am paid by the hour, and on the other hand it makes me feel that it's so that by the end of week four they will have their complete 12-week course for EAP and they can send me away, no longer needing my services. Clearly not good.
But enough complaining: I've been working 7 hours already and I feel that some distraction is well deserved... Miss Marple here I come.
LSA4 - reload, is coming soon. Having said that, I have no idea of when it will be, as far as I'm aware it may well be tomorrow, since my tutor only appears when he needs money or admin info from me, and seems to be in another country/world/planet any other time...
Anyway, I am working on an assignment on pronunciation and stress in connected speech, having been convinced that discourse is a suicidal decision (it did feel like that, but pronunciation is so scary). I have spent most of yesterday and today working on notes, preparing a provisional lesson plan, thinkink of resources. My weekly plan involves an equal amount of time spent on the assignment, on preparing the materials, the class profile (of a class I don't even have, this being my last week at the school and probably my last too, by the looks of it), and all that jazz.
The school I am working for is not exactly the best I have worked for...Week three of four, they take a picture of me to put on the teachers' wall, which makes me feel they are serious about keeping me on. They plan to observe me on Thursday, that is, the day before my last day of contract, which is either promising or really bad planning. They haven't given me a contract because the DOS is the only one who prepares them, and she's back on week four, which means I may as well have a contract on my last day of the contract, which somehow is hilarious. They say it will be no problem to find me a class for the observation, but they can't tell me if there will be work after November 5th (presumably because of some Guy Fawkes-like attack on the school that they have foreseen but which may not happen...). They have been giving me lots of work, which on the one hand is pretty cool as I am paid by the hour, and on the other hand it makes me feel that it's so that by the end of week four they will have their complete 12-week course for EAP and they can send me away, no longer needing my services. Clearly not good.
But enough complaining: I've been working 7 hours already and I feel that some distraction is well deserved... Miss Marple here I come.
Monday, April 12, 2010
What a waste of paper
Naming no names, the initials will be enough: NH intermediate. What a lot of rubbish. Having previously complained about its boring listening, its useless reading, its unbelievable list of vocabulary (unit 5, if I'm not mistaken, introduces none other than 25 adjectives!), today I will complain about its random presentation of grammar.
Unit 8, revision of conditionals (first and second): revision of first, all fine, intro to time clauses like "when I have time I'll take a second degree" or stuff like that. Even the grammar box and the explanation at the back of the book reiterates that nothing but present simple and perfect go after "when", so I stick to the instructions, just in case...and before I know it, the practice exercise that follows gives a sentence such as "when will you know if you've got the job", which fair enough, cannot be expressed otherwise, but haven't you just told your lot that the future cannot go after "when"???
Man, I do hate this book... Luckily I can use other resources, or god knows how I would have survived these 6 (7?) weeks...
In other news, having prepared paragraph 3 of module 3, improved the introduction, completed the background assignment for LSA4, prepared the lesson plan, I can definetely say that I am exhausted...and it's only Monday.
Unit 8, revision of conditionals (first and second): revision of first, all fine, intro to time clauses like "when I have time I'll take a second degree" or stuff like that. Even the grammar box and the explanation at the back of the book reiterates that nothing but present simple and perfect go after "when", so I stick to the instructions, just in case...and before I know it, the practice exercise that follows gives a sentence such as "when will you know if you've got the job", which fair enough, cannot be expressed otherwise, but haven't you just told your lot that the future cannot go after "when"???
Man, I do hate this book... Luckily I can use other resources, or god knows how I would have survived these 6 (7?) weeks...
In other news, having prepared paragraph 3 of module 3, improved the introduction, completed the background assignment for LSA4, prepared the lesson plan, I can definetely say that I am exhausted...and it's only Monday.
Sunday, April 04, 2010
PDA Stage 4, or: utopia
Since we are almost at the end of module 2 (with the external observation being the nightmare of nightmares, but let's not dwell on it), there is one more thing to do to close a chapter: complete the PDA assignment.
The PD (professional development) assignment, also called R&A (research and action), is the idea that after being observed the first time (the diagnostic, that is, not the official LSA1), you can identify key areas for development and improvement, as well as strengths to work on even more to become a super teacher. (Ahem: yeah, right).
So, divided into three stages, first you identify these areas, in the next session you say how you are working on them and possibly if there is anything to adjust (example: now that you, examiner, mention it, I see that my board work is not that bad...but my ccq are, so let's include them in my list. Just an example - my ccq are great, and so is my boardwork!).
Now it's the last stage, which is the one where (I just checked this on the rubric) you comment on how my "beliefs on teaching and learning and my classroom practice have changed as a result of this assignment" then you "identify and critically evaluate the most effective procedures and/or methods and/or documents for reflection and observation" that I (should) have used for my own professional development for this assignment; finally, you outline how you will continue to use these as part of your own continuing professional development.
In other words, you tell them what they want to hear and everyone's happy.
Because once again, let's face it, would we really have the time to do this? How can I write on my assignment that not only I have never had time to observe other teachers (being that I need to work to pay the rent/food/gym/books/Delta and can't just take time off), but the two I actually observed in December had a lot more faults than me and actually, I think that they would have benefited from a couple of input sessions on, say, how NOT to answer your own ccq. How can I say that yes, in an ideal world I would come home from a 10-hour work day and happily start developing materials for professional development, such as student's questionnaires, feedback forms, write my own journal on every lesson (which fair enough, I tried to do, only time...), and so on and so forth. Experience has taught me that most teachers just go by the book, and have no interest whatsoever in improving their teaching skills, especially once they're happily settled (like my current colleagues) and all they need to do is check that the cd player works, then off to class. Some do put some effort, but only because they've seen the same material over and over again and could do with some variety!
Ultimately, I am going to work on improving, constantly, because it's the way I am, and I love my job and want to be good at it. But I don't think I need to tell the Delta people that I will do it, because I certainly cannot promise a detailed action plan when I have no idea where I will be a year from now. Or six months from now, as far as I'm aware...the job in London is only until mid-August...
Anyway, enough of this: let's just write it down and pretend it never happened.
Happy Easter, everyone:-)
The PD (professional development) assignment, also called R&A (research and action), is the idea that after being observed the first time (the diagnostic, that is, not the official LSA1), you can identify key areas for development and improvement, as well as strengths to work on even more to become a super teacher. (Ahem: yeah, right).
So, divided into three stages, first you identify these areas, in the next session you say how you are working on them and possibly if there is anything to adjust (example: now that you, examiner, mention it, I see that my board work is not that bad...but my ccq are, so let's include them in my list. Just an example - my ccq are great, and so is my boardwork!).
Now it's the last stage, which is the one where (I just checked this on the rubric) you comment on how my "beliefs on teaching and learning and my classroom practice have changed as a result of this assignment" then you "identify and critically evaluate the most effective procedures and/or methods and/or documents for reflection and observation" that I (should) have used for my own professional development for this assignment; finally, you outline how you will continue to use these as part of your own continuing professional development.
In other words, you tell them what they want to hear and everyone's happy.
Because once again, let's face it, would we really have the time to do this? How can I write on my assignment that not only I have never had time to observe other teachers (being that I need to work to pay the rent/food/gym/books/Delta and can't just take time off), but the two I actually observed in December had a lot more faults than me and actually, I think that they would have benefited from a couple of input sessions on, say, how NOT to answer your own ccq. How can I say that yes, in an ideal world I would come home from a 10-hour work day and happily start developing materials for professional development, such as student's questionnaires, feedback forms, write my own journal on every lesson (which fair enough, I tried to do, only time...), and so on and so forth. Experience has taught me that most teachers just go by the book, and have no interest whatsoever in improving their teaching skills, especially once they're happily settled (like my current colleagues) and all they need to do is check that the cd player works, then off to class. Some do put some effort, but only because they've seen the same material over and over again and could do with some variety!
Ultimately, I am going to work on improving, constantly, because it's the way I am, and I love my job and want to be good at it. But I don't think I need to tell the Delta people that I will do it, because I certainly cannot promise a detailed action plan when I have no idea where I will be a year from now. Or six months from now, as far as I'm aware...the job in London is only until mid-August...
Anyway, enough of this: let's just write it down and pretend it never happened.
Happy Easter, everyone:-)
Saturday, March 27, 2010
7 books and counting - plus: the unreal life of DELTA students
Am currently preparing for LSA4: having read 7 books on the topic of teaching vocabulary, the only thing that is now clear is that nothing is clear.
Just like when I was preparing the assignment for LSA1, listening, everything is good and nothing is good. Pre-teaching vocabulary, not pre-teaching it, first the meaning then the form or the other way around, only 5 items or 20 items, chunks or single units, high TTT or total student's autonomy, translation or not translation.
Once again, I feel like everything I have done for the past 2 odd years doesn't mean anything, and is possibly wrong: if you believe the Cambridge people, the world of EFL is a fantastic island where every lesson is a rainbow of perfectly behaved smart students, who respond with perfect timing and the correct word, where a working day stretches to infinity, allowing you the time to plan and prepare perfect, memorable lessons, all from scratch, thanks to the wonders of technology and of your brilliant mind, you, the EFL teacher, holder of language knowldege.
In real life, unfortunately, a working day means being up at 6.30, walking to school, grab a cup of tea and start flipping through books wondering how to make your students click, and finally say "I went to the pub last night" rather than "I go to pub yesterday night" for the umpteenth time. And after queueing for the photocopier which will normally break down at precisely 8.32 of a Monday morning, you decide to actually use the horrible course book assigned for this run of the course, only to find out that the cd doesn't work, or the cd player doesn't work, or they work fine but the listening is so boring that it sends you to sleep in a microsecond.
Then in your afternoon class, as you are teaching IELTS to a bunch of lazy students whose studies are paid by the government so who can't be bothered to study when they can have a fun life free from responsabilities, you are trying to elicit methods to actually pass the bleeding exam, for example by looking at the questions, first, and guessing what the answers may be, the response to which is that one of them, after the lesson, goes to your DOS and says that you don't know the answers and are asking them!
At the end of the day you decide to go to the gym, because your brain needs some rest, so you spend an hour sweating on a treadmill watching CBBC on the screen in front of you, and when you go home, and it's almost 7 o'clock, all you want to do is collapse in a heap, crawl to the bed and enjoy a nice book (like the new biography of Dickens that you've just bought).
But no, there's the A-Z of EFL waiting for you on the desk, piled up with Lewis and Schmitt and Nation, and needs analysis forms to study, and of course your friend Jordan, all shouting for attention; and finally, what exactly are we going to teach tomorrow?
Oh, right, the class wants to study present perfect simple and continuous, the same class of students who today, after 90 minutes 90 of "I went - I didn't go", told you that "yesterday I don't sleep much because I go to pub with my friends"...
Just like when I was preparing the assignment for LSA1, listening, everything is good and nothing is good. Pre-teaching vocabulary, not pre-teaching it, first the meaning then the form or the other way around, only 5 items or 20 items, chunks or single units, high TTT or total student's autonomy, translation or not translation.
Once again, I feel like everything I have done for the past 2 odd years doesn't mean anything, and is possibly wrong: if you believe the Cambridge people, the world of EFL is a fantastic island where every lesson is a rainbow of perfectly behaved smart students, who respond with perfect timing and the correct word, where a working day stretches to infinity, allowing you the time to plan and prepare perfect, memorable lessons, all from scratch, thanks to the wonders of technology and of your brilliant mind, you, the EFL teacher, holder of language knowldege.
In real life, unfortunately, a working day means being up at 6.30, walking to school, grab a cup of tea and start flipping through books wondering how to make your students click, and finally say "I went to the pub last night" rather than "I go to pub yesterday night" for the umpteenth time. And after queueing for the photocopier which will normally break down at precisely 8.32 of a Monday morning, you decide to actually use the horrible course book assigned for this run of the course, only to find out that the cd doesn't work, or the cd player doesn't work, or they work fine but the listening is so boring that it sends you to sleep in a microsecond.
Then in your afternoon class, as you are teaching IELTS to a bunch of lazy students whose studies are paid by the government so who can't be bothered to study when they can have a fun life free from responsabilities, you are trying to elicit methods to actually pass the bleeding exam, for example by looking at the questions, first, and guessing what the answers may be, the response to which is that one of them, after the lesson, goes to your DOS and says that you don't know the answers and are asking them!
At the end of the day you decide to go to the gym, because your brain needs some rest, so you spend an hour sweating on a treadmill watching CBBC on the screen in front of you, and when you go home, and it's almost 7 o'clock, all you want to do is collapse in a heap, crawl to the bed and enjoy a nice book (like the new biography of Dickens that you've just bought).
But no, there's the A-Z of EFL waiting for you on the desk, piled up with Lewis and Schmitt and Nation, and needs analysis forms to study, and of course your friend Jordan, all shouting for attention; and finally, what exactly are we going to teach tomorrow?
Oh, right, the class wants to study present perfect simple and continuous, the same class of students who today, after 90 minutes 90 of "I went - I didn't go", told you that "yesterday I don't sleep much because I go to pub with my friends"...
Wednesday, March 10, 2010
Articles: my own material (almost)
I like making my own stuff (without sounding suspicious). It allows a bit of creativity, and when you have to use such a horrible useless nonsense book like NH, well, sometimes it's the only thing you can do.
So today it was articles, which for a class of Arabs and Czechs and Koreans was a real struggle, but thanks to James Bond it worked well.
So all you do is: find an extract from a book (can't, for the life of me, can't remember where that reading came from), a very short passage about James Bond and someone named Mary and a guy from KGB.
Give it to the students with random questions to answer (being the last thing on my mind I had to make them up as I was writing on the board, so it was all about "who do you think Mary is" and "what do you think will happen next").
Write a couple of examples on the board, test how much they know of why in one there is "the" and in the other there is "a".
Go throughsome examples and rules.
A matching exercise (from sentence to explanation) is useful, at this point: I found a good one in "Trouble with articles" or something like that (have tried to find a link on Amazon, no such luck). Of course the students will want to do the other exercises as well, which is just fine as they are dialogues and spot-the-mistake kind of exercises, so it's good.
Finally, take the reading back (I made them turn the page over so that they couldn't read it), and give them the same reading but with gap-fills: I have never seen them so interested as in those 10 minutes (excluding an idiot who doesn't deserve more attention here than what he gets - not - in class. Seriously, nothing hurts an attention-seeker more than not getting attention, and I am soooo good at ignoring people when they annoy me. Unfortunately for him, I always give people 3 chances, and he burnt his 3 within 5 minutes of the first day in class).
Optional: snakes and ladders from New Cutting Edge pre-intermediate Teacher's Book: meant to be a 20 minutes game, it turned into a 50 minute-tournament...
Optional 2: Skaterboy from New English File intermediate TB; a song is always appreciated, and in today's case, it was a good way to conclude, since it also goes quite fast, so even if they had to predict how to fill the gaps before listening, it was still tough.
Big smile! Tomorrow it's speaking day, mostly, Friday will be food and easy stuff, maybe a category game, then at 12 half the class will leave to go to the Mosque, so I'm nearly done. And next week it's L5, so, back to my pre-intermediate. Hopefully I'll have "small Abdullah", who is fun to teach. Shame I'll have to leave "big Abdullah", who has been renamed "sweet Abdullah": you look at him and melt, nothing but that.
I love this class:-)
So today it was articles, which for a class of Arabs and Czechs and Koreans was a real struggle, but thanks to James Bond it worked well.
So all you do is: find an extract from a book (can't, for the life of me, can't remember where that reading came from), a very short passage about James Bond and someone named Mary and a guy from KGB.
Give it to the students with random questions to answer (being the last thing on my mind I had to make them up as I was writing on the board, so it was all about "who do you think Mary is" and "what do you think will happen next").
Write a couple of examples on the board, test how much they know of why in one there is "the" and in the other there is "a".
Go throughsome examples and rules.
A matching exercise (from sentence to explanation) is useful, at this point: I found a good one in "Trouble with articles" or something like that (have tried to find a link on Amazon, no such luck). Of course the students will want to do the other exercises as well, which is just fine as they are dialogues and spot-the-mistake kind of exercises, so it's good.
Finally, take the reading back (I made them turn the page over so that they couldn't read it), and give them the same reading but with gap-fills: I have never seen them so interested as in those 10 minutes (excluding an idiot who doesn't deserve more attention here than what he gets - not - in class. Seriously, nothing hurts an attention-seeker more than not getting attention, and I am soooo good at ignoring people when they annoy me. Unfortunately for him, I always give people 3 chances, and he burnt his 3 within 5 minutes of the first day in class).
Optional: snakes and ladders from New Cutting Edge pre-intermediate Teacher's Book: meant to be a 20 minutes game, it turned into a 50 minute-tournament...
Optional 2: Skaterboy from New English File intermediate TB; a song is always appreciated, and in today's case, it was a good way to conclude, since it also goes quite fast, so even if they had to predict how to fill the gaps before listening, it was still tough.
Big smile! Tomorrow it's speaking day, mostly, Friday will be food and easy stuff, maybe a category game, then at 12 half the class will leave to go to the Mosque, so I'm nearly done. And next week it's L5, so, back to my pre-intermediate. Hopefully I'll have "small Abdullah", who is fun to teach. Shame I'll have to leave "big Abdullah", who has been renamed "sweet Abdullah": you look at him and melt, nothing but that.
I love this class:-)
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, December 06, 2009
Getting caught in the rain is not fun.
Well…the title says it all. But at least I got home a lot earlier than usual, thanks to free Wednesdays afternoons, and could do some studying and have a decent lunch before heading off to yet another inset (about Christmas activities, of course).
So, Monday was testing, at last, which means a really quiet morning, and having already prepared for my afternoon class, I really enjoyed some time just planning what to teach them for the rest of the week and all that: L4 is a really nice level, they are so chatty and noisy, it’s beautiful! And they are 5 or 6, which is also great, I am so tired of teaching mini-classes.
Speaking of which, and of my luck, there actually is an S2 class…damn! It’s super tiny, only 2 students, of which one if the most talkative person ever, he almost doesn’t stop to breathe! He’s only here for a week, and he clearly said that he’s going to make the most of it and practice his speaking, well, he is! I’m not complaining, mind: in the first lesson, I think I spoke a total of 2 minutes…such a change! I do prepare stuff to do, but mostly we go off tangents as soon as (both of them, really) spot an opportunity to chat away, and I’m fine with it: at this level, after all, it’s mostly consolidating grammar and expanding vocabulary, and I’m doing things, even if they don’t always notice. I’ll try to include some pronunciation too, if they ever let me! Next week, instead, I think it will be a one-to-one with the other student, also very nice. So, these last two weeks are going to be a lot more enjoyable than the past month, big smile.
In other news, it’s almost time to think about my LSA2, systems. That is, grammar, or phonology, or vocabulary. I think I’m going to play it safe, and prepare something about the second conditional: with a good build-up (revise past tenses, create a good context) it’s going to be smooth, albeit not original at all, but who cares. I’m not risking a fail just to try and show off. That’s also why my experimental practice was boring and banal, which will cost me, because one of the criteria is actually originality, but we’re talking of pass vs. fail here, no merit or whatever, and I am aiming at a pass, which I am 99% to get. Plus, with the kind of class I had, with the lack of technology, the lack of time to read some literature about it, and all that, sorry, that was all I can do. I’ll experiment TBL or CLL some other time, when I don’t have 900£ at stake…
So, Monday was testing, at last, which means a really quiet morning, and having already prepared for my afternoon class, I really enjoyed some time just planning what to teach them for the rest of the week and all that: L4 is a really nice level, they are so chatty and noisy, it’s beautiful! And they are 5 or 6, which is also great, I am so tired of teaching mini-classes.
Speaking of which, and of my luck, there actually is an S2 class…damn! It’s super tiny, only 2 students, of which one if the most talkative person ever, he almost doesn’t stop to breathe! He’s only here for a week, and he clearly said that he’s going to make the most of it and practice his speaking, well, he is! I’m not complaining, mind: in the first lesson, I think I spoke a total of 2 minutes…such a change! I do prepare stuff to do, but mostly we go off tangents as soon as (both of them, really) spot an opportunity to chat away, and I’m fine with it: at this level, after all, it’s mostly consolidating grammar and expanding vocabulary, and I’m doing things, even if they don’t always notice. I’ll try to include some pronunciation too, if they ever let me! Next week, instead, I think it will be a one-to-one with the other student, also very nice. So, these last two weeks are going to be a lot more enjoyable than the past month, big smile.
In other news, it’s almost time to think about my LSA2, systems. That is, grammar, or phonology, or vocabulary. I think I’m going to play it safe, and prepare something about the second conditional: with a good build-up (revise past tenses, create a good context) it’s going to be smooth, albeit not original at all, but who cares. I’m not risking a fail just to try and show off. That’s also why my experimental practice was boring and banal, which will cost me, because one of the criteria is actually originality, but we’re talking of pass vs. fail here, no merit or whatever, and I am aiming at a pass, which I am 99% to get. Plus, with the kind of class I had, with the lack of technology, the lack of time to read some literature about it, and all that, sorry, that was all I can do. I’ll experiment TBL or CLL some other time, when I don’t have 900£ at stake…
Monday, November 09, 2009
And the countdown is...
So, Wednesday is the big day of the first observation, or LSA1.
Checklist:
- background assignment: completed
- material for appendix: prepared
- cover sheet for lesson plan: ready
- lesson plan: done
- material for the lesson: photocopied, stapled, clipped, ready
- board plan: clear in my mind... Ok, I'll prepare it now, just as a back-up (we're doing prepositions, can't be too difficult, but better be prepared..)
Ultimately, I am ready, and feel ready, if only for a couple of details, such as the fact that I am not teaching anything special in language, so there is no word study in my cover sheet about it, only collocations...Got to ask about that...
And also, I have to borrow two students from L3, so that I'll have the right number for my lesson to be valid... I have a taught those guy before, and was thinking of going to their class tomorrow and asking two volunteers, rather than asking the teacher to blindly giving me two students who have no clue of what's going on... Still, it's scary because most of the guys in that class are Arabic, and this means that my assumptions on their knowledge would be rough, rather than spot-on. I can only cross my fingers...
More to come...
Checklist:
- background assignment: completed
- material for appendix: prepared
- cover sheet for lesson plan: ready
- lesson plan: done
- material for the lesson: photocopied, stapled, clipped, ready
- board plan: clear in my mind... Ok, I'll prepare it now, just as a back-up (we're doing prepositions, can't be too difficult, but better be prepared..)
Ultimately, I am ready, and feel ready, if only for a couple of details, such as the fact that I am not teaching anything special in language, so there is no word study in my cover sheet about it, only collocations...Got to ask about that...
And also, I have to borrow two students from L3, so that I'll have the right number for my lesson to be valid... I have a taught those guy before, and was thinking of going to their class tomorrow and asking two volunteers, rather than asking the teacher to blindly giving me two students who have no clue of what's going on... Still, it's scary because most of the guys in that class are Arabic, and this means that my assumptions on their knowledge would be rough, rather than spot-on. I can only cross my fingers...
More to come...
Thursday, October 29, 2009
Background assignment, experimental practice, and whatnot...
It’s reading week for Delta students, but this doesn’t mean much, really…only that we can try and use this time to catch up with all the things we have to prepare, a list of which was included in my previous post.
So, where to start…
It’s the last week with my lovely S 3.2, as both the Czechs and the two French girls who have joined for this week only are leaving on Friday, and for the occasion it will be movie-time again, and possibly scones… if not my own recipe, then supermarket ones, as I doubt I’ll have the time to bake…or learn how to use that oven in time (first experiment went fine, second went baaaad, so have lost my confidence now, and I’m annoyed, being the Queen of Cakes and Muffins).
On the other hand, my S 2 class is suddenly crowded! From 2 to 6, how cool is that? Pair work at last, and discussions, and all that. Of course, things cannot be perfect, so one of the students is a Spanish university teacher who lives in France and teaches any sort of English there, who has lived in the USA for something like 7 years, and who said that the level of the class is too easy for her… Ahem…You’ll excuse me if the other students are struggling enough to keep their head above the water while I pull them down with complicated vocabulary, phrasal verbs, long reading tasks, and challenging listening! So today I did what every teacher should do when confronted with such a student: I drowned my class in idioms, proved to know I know a loooot more than they do, which is obvious, but above all, proved that SHE doesn’t know as much as she thinks she does (and her pronunciation fails her every now and then, which makes me, I confess, highly happy, hehehe).
What I have taught this week.
Upper-intermediate class: having got this horrible book to use, I did try to find something remotely interesting and useful, barely managed to, as it is really bad. I mean, I see the point of it, being highly task-based, so theoretically it’s good, focusing on the grammar, giving a lot of colloquial expressions too, functional language all the time. Bad points, which unfortunately outnumber the good points: the grammar is spread with no logical order (past perfect in Unit 5, present perfect continuous in Unit 11, just to mention something); BORING TOPICS! I mean, BORING! I found a unit with a reading about carrier bags, which in itself is almost as boring as discussing the weather in the Caribbean, I guess, but worse than that was the discussion following the reading, which included questions such as: “Do you have a favourite carrier bag? How long have you had it for?”. I mean, seriously… Also, crap listening stuff! Almost as bad as the ones in the previous book, which is depressing when you consider how important listening is in teaching and learning a foreign language. There would be more, but I’ll stop here. The point is, I used the book twice last week, and twice this week, going back to my favourite text book on Wednesday, and again on Thursday.
Generally, things went well, and I am now starting to think of my diagnostic observation, the feedback I got, and what I should do about my weak points. But this is another chapter of the story, really…
Advanced class: we started off with an easy thing, coming from an upper-intermediate book, just because most of my students are virtually advanced but struggle all the same, especially with specific vocabulary; so this was the beginning of the week, followed by a long article on male beauty, oversaturated with vocabulary, which they tackled and beat clear. Wednesday I attacked them with body idioms, which was seriously complicated for both parts, as there are so many, and I had only chosen a few important ones, that my guys were likely both to hear and to use, but they came up with more, so it was challenging on my part too, in the end.
All in all, not a bad week, albeit my eternal juggling condition… but it’s nice to be teaching such advanced levels.
Next on the list:
Background assignment for the first observed lesson.
Assuming I will have a similar class to the one I’ve had so far, I am focusing on “helping advanced (or upper-intermediate, we’ll see) students with understanding details in listening tasks”. Precisely, I am considering what Anderson and Lynch call “transactional listening”, although I have to double-check the definition; we are talking about the kind of listening where you need to understand in details, activate a lot more than a listening for gist sort of skill, here you are processing the information you receive so that you can then summarize it. As an example, I am considering the kind of listening I did with my guys for the diagnostic observation, where we were talking about mysterious stories, so they had to understand what the story was about, but there was a lot more than that, like years, and specific words that would make the situation clearer, and so on. The idea is that in the case of “interactional listening”, interaction can be minimal, being limited to a simple nod of the head, or random “uh-hu”s, and so on, and comprehension isn’t necessarily deep (talking about a party or something, you may need to understand only words like “good”, “fun”, “music”, or such), whereas in transactional listening there must be a deeper effort to understand/interpret the information so that you are then able to process and repeat it – in your own words, which is evidence of comprehension, rather than repeating from memory.
So this is it, and the weekend will be dedicated to this assignment, and to the preparation of the lesson plan, only the skeleton, thank God, because at the same time I’ll be working on my next point:
Professional Development Assignment – part A.
This is when I consider my strength and my weaknesses, also in view of the feedback I have received after my diagnostic observation, and which underlined the usual things I receive as feedback:
GOOD POINTS:
Language awareness (which include good use of check questions, examples, and so on)
Good and unobtrusive error correction techniques
Clear board work
Good learning environment (friendly, professional, calm attitude, not dominating, good involvement of the students)
BAD POINTS:
Instructions (a really bad point, I don’t know why it’s so difficult!)
Form and pronunciation of the language not on board
Board work, although good, could be more methodical, and things like random language could go there too, which I do, actually, but I tend to put words related to the topic, rather than random words.
Time management (another really bad point)
So, ultimately, not bad, and nothing new under the sun: the weekend will see me reflect on these points and start thinking of an action plan, which will include those students’ questionnaires I’ve been handing out for a couple of weeks during the past 4 weeks.
And for the final thing to do during what I (clearly) expect to be a loooong weekend:
Experimental practice assignment (stage 2).
And this is where I go “uhm, my teaching life is absolutely complicated, rushed, hectic 5 days a week and sometimes more; what can I do to mess it up even more? Oh, I know: I can try and teach using a technique I’ve never used, or teach something I have never taught before, and when I do that, I can get another teacher to observe me, just to increase the level of stress brought on by being completely out of my comfort zone!”.
….I don’t think I need to explain further…
So, this for an anticipation of the next weekend/week…
I do wish I had more time, considering how I am also trying to go to the gym 3 to 4 times a week, and chilling doesn’t sound too bad an idea either, every now and then… I bought this book at the airport, London: the biography, which I can’t wait to read, and will never do, I know, not before the course ends, in June… Even when I decide to take some time off assignments, all I can think of is books, and teaching ideas, and research, and photocopying more materials, and and and…
Yes, we’re all thinking it: I’m a total workaholic, and proud to be.
So, where to start…
It’s the last week with my lovely S 3.2, as both the Czechs and the two French girls who have joined for this week only are leaving on Friday, and for the occasion it will be movie-time again, and possibly scones… if not my own recipe, then supermarket ones, as I doubt I’ll have the time to bake…or learn how to use that oven in time (first experiment went fine, second went baaaad, so have lost my confidence now, and I’m annoyed, being the Queen of Cakes and Muffins).
On the other hand, my S 2 class is suddenly crowded! From 2 to 6, how cool is that? Pair work at last, and discussions, and all that. Of course, things cannot be perfect, so one of the students is a Spanish university teacher who lives in France and teaches any sort of English there, who has lived in the USA for something like 7 years, and who said that the level of the class is too easy for her… Ahem…You’ll excuse me if the other students are struggling enough to keep their head above the water while I pull them down with complicated vocabulary, phrasal verbs, long reading tasks, and challenging listening! So today I did what every teacher should do when confronted with such a student: I drowned my class in idioms, proved to know I know a loooot more than they do, which is obvious, but above all, proved that SHE doesn’t know as much as she thinks she does (and her pronunciation fails her every now and then, which makes me, I confess, highly happy, hehehe).
What I have taught this week.
Upper-intermediate class: having got this horrible book to use, I did try to find something remotely interesting and useful, barely managed to, as it is really bad. I mean, I see the point of it, being highly task-based, so theoretically it’s good, focusing on the grammar, giving a lot of colloquial expressions too, functional language all the time. Bad points, which unfortunately outnumber the good points: the grammar is spread with no logical order (past perfect in Unit 5, present perfect continuous in Unit 11, just to mention something); BORING TOPICS! I mean, BORING! I found a unit with a reading about carrier bags, which in itself is almost as boring as discussing the weather in the Caribbean, I guess, but worse than that was the discussion following the reading, which included questions such as: “Do you have a favourite carrier bag? How long have you had it for?”. I mean, seriously… Also, crap listening stuff! Almost as bad as the ones in the previous book, which is depressing when you consider how important listening is in teaching and learning a foreign language. There would be more, but I’ll stop here. The point is, I used the book twice last week, and twice this week, going back to my favourite text book on Wednesday, and again on Thursday.
Generally, things went well, and I am now starting to think of my diagnostic observation, the feedback I got, and what I should do about my weak points. But this is another chapter of the story, really…
Advanced class: we started off with an easy thing, coming from an upper-intermediate book, just because most of my students are virtually advanced but struggle all the same, especially with specific vocabulary; so this was the beginning of the week, followed by a long article on male beauty, oversaturated with vocabulary, which they tackled and beat clear. Wednesday I attacked them with body idioms, which was seriously complicated for both parts, as there are so many, and I had only chosen a few important ones, that my guys were likely both to hear and to use, but they came up with more, so it was challenging on my part too, in the end.
All in all, not a bad week, albeit my eternal juggling condition… but it’s nice to be teaching such advanced levels.
Next on the list:
Background assignment for the first observed lesson.
Assuming I will have a similar class to the one I’ve had so far, I am focusing on “helping advanced (or upper-intermediate, we’ll see) students with understanding details in listening tasks”. Precisely, I am considering what Anderson and Lynch call “transactional listening”, although I have to double-check the definition; we are talking about the kind of listening where you need to understand in details, activate a lot more than a listening for gist sort of skill, here you are processing the information you receive so that you can then summarize it. As an example, I am considering the kind of listening I did with my guys for the diagnostic observation, where we were talking about mysterious stories, so they had to understand what the story was about, but there was a lot more than that, like years, and specific words that would make the situation clearer, and so on. The idea is that in the case of “interactional listening”, interaction can be minimal, being limited to a simple nod of the head, or random “uh-hu”s, and so on, and comprehension isn’t necessarily deep (talking about a party or something, you may need to understand only words like “good”, “fun”, “music”, or such), whereas in transactional listening there must be a deeper effort to understand/interpret the information so that you are then able to process and repeat it – in your own words, which is evidence of comprehension, rather than repeating from memory.
So this is it, and the weekend will be dedicated to this assignment, and to the preparation of the lesson plan, only the skeleton, thank God, because at the same time I’ll be working on my next point:
Professional Development Assignment – part A.
This is when I consider my strength and my weaknesses, also in view of the feedback I have received after my diagnostic observation, and which underlined the usual things I receive as feedback:
GOOD POINTS:
Language awareness (which include good use of check questions, examples, and so on)
Good and unobtrusive error correction techniques
Clear board work
Good learning environment (friendly, professional, calm attitude, not dominating, good involvement of the students)
BAD POINTS:
Instructions (a really bad point, I don’t know why it’s so difficult!)
Form and pronunciation of the language not on board
Board work, although good, could be more methodical, and things like random language could go there too, which I do, actually, but I tend to put words related to the topic, rather than random words.
Time management (another really bad point)
So, ultimately, not bad, and nothing new under the sun: the weekend will see me reflect on these points and start thinking of an action plan, which will include those students’ questionnaires I’ve been handing out for a couple of weeks during the past 4 weeks.
And for the final thing to do during what I (clearly) expect to be a loooong weekend:
Experimental practice assignment (stage 2).
And this is where I go “uhm, my teaching life is absolutely complicated, rushed, hectic 5 days a week and sometimes more; what can I do to mess it up even more? Oh, I know: I can try and teach using a technique I’ve never used, or teach something I have never taught before, and when I do that, I can get another teacher to observe me, just to increase the level of stress brought on by being completely out of my comfort zone!”.
….I don’t think I need to explain further…
So, this for an anticipation of the next weekend/week…
I do wish I had more time, considering how I am also trying to go to the gym 3 to 4 times a week, and chilling doesn’t sound too bad an idea either, every now and then… I bought this book at the airport, London: the biography, which I can’t wait to read, and will never do, I know, not before the course ends, in June… Even when I decide to take some time off assignments, all I can think of is books, and teaching ideas, and research, and photocopying more materials, and and and…
Yes, we’re all thinking it: I’m a total workaholic, and proud to be.
Sunday, October 18, 2009
Finally, some (teaching) action
Following a very strange day, here I am trying to work on tomorrow's lesson, which includes the first observation, diagnostic, unassessed, but still scary in some ways.
I will only have two students, my Czech guys, which means a good environment, but lots of work on my part as I cannot really set up speaking tasks and let them go for hours without joining in. Oh, well, it's just my luck I suppose, and besides, it will only show my "skills" in keeping a tiny class live and awake despite the "boredom" of having a really limited number of students.
So tomorrow we are discussing modals of deduction in the past, listening to mysterious events, playing "The maze of terror", one of my favourite activities, and it took me an hour to prepare the whole thing, materials included.
The lesson before, for the moment, is a revision of narrative tenses focusing on short stories to read, complete, invent...easy stuff possibly! I am quite confident about it all, I have been observed so many times, everything is planned properly (as in: in more details than usual, which simply means that I had to think of a specific reason for the activites rather than a generic thought of "listening and fill the gaps with words that I taught earlier"). Feedback due on Thursday, which will give me time to write my self-evalution form, update my journal, start writing the Action Research Thingy where I consider where I am as a teacher, what my beliefs are, strengths, weaknesses, ideas for improvement, all that stuff.
Plans for the rest of the day, then:
first of all, I should take a quick look at the first part of tomorrow's lesson, although I have already spent about 2 hours doing so, in the past 3 days. Trouble is, the more I look at it, the less I remember, the more I get confused because I start thinking of ways to link this lesson to the other lessons in the week, and things that we need to revise, and problems that arose on Friday during the revision game, and all that... I do love this job because it keeps my mind active and jumpy.
Later on, a walk seems the best idea: the sun is out, the leaves are a beautiful colour, Stour Valley will be lovely, my camera is ready, and my body is calling for some more movement than the tapping of fingers on the keyboard or standing up to go get more books from my desk...
And finally, just a few days before I have my very hectic Italian weekend, starting Friday, which will leave me exhausted and at the beginning of the reading week, so I'll have time to catch up with books that I haven't read, and start planning my first observed lesson, and finish that ART (Action Research Thingy).
And now, before going back to books and lesson plans, I think a bit of yoga sounds appropriate...
I will only have two students, my Czech guys, which means a good environment, but lots of work on my part as I cannot really set up speaking tasks and let them go for hours without joining in. Oh, well, it's just my luck I suppose, and besides, it will only show my "skills" in keeping a tiny class live and awake despite the "boredom" of having a really limited number of students.
So tomorrow we are discussing modals of deduction in the past, listening to mysterious events, playing "The maze of terror", one of my favourite activities, and it took me an hour to prepare the whole thing, materials included.
The lesson before, for the moment, is a revision of narrative tenses focusing on short stories to read, complete, invent...easy stuff possibly! I am quite confident about it all, I have been observed so many times, everything is planned properly (as in: in more details than usual, which simply means that I had to think of a specific reason for the activites rather than a generic thought of "listening and fill the gaps with words that I taught earlier"). Feedback due on Thursday, which will give me time to write my self-evalution form, update my journal, start writing the Action Research Thingy where I consider where I am as a teacher, what my beliefs are, strengths, weaknesses, ideas for improvement, all that stuff.
Plans for the rest of the day, then:
first of all, I should take a quick look at the first part of tomorrow's lesson, although I have already spent about 2 hours doing so, in the past 3 days. Trouble is, the more I look at it, the less I remember, the more I get confused because I start thinking of ways to link this lesson to the other lessons in the week, and things that we need to revise, and problems that arose on Friday during the revision game, and all that... I do love this job because it keeps my mind active and jumpy.
Later on, a walk seems the best idea: the sun is out, the leaves are a beautiful colour, Stour Valley will be lovely, my camera is ready, and my body is calling for some more movement than the tapping of fingers on the keyboard or standing up to go get more books from my desk...
And finally, just a few days before I have my very hectic Italian weekend, starting Friday, which will leave me exhausted and at the beginning of the reading week, so I'll have time to catch up with books that I haven't read, and start planning my first observed lesson, and finish that ART (Action Research Thingy).
And now, before going back to books and lesson plans, I think a bit of yoga sounds appropriate...
Sunday, October 11, 2009
Yes, updating would be good...like having a 30-hour day, really
...which for the moment is not possible...
So, for what is going on at the moment:
- started the DELTA. This means a looooot of work, tons of books to read, and stress levels as high as possible as I think of the observations, and of the little time I have to do everything... It does feel extremely good, though, when I see my desk crowded with books, and I spend weekends making notes, detailed tables, I jot down ideas, prepare students' questionnaires and learn of new ways to teach... I am a nerd, ultimately...
- contract extended until December, then we keep our fingers crossed, don't we? I do love it there: have just finished teaching the run with the hopeless L5 students, who are becoming more and more neurotic, suffering from acute blocking syndrome, which means that now they won't speak until they can see a positive reaction from me that confirms that yes, the grammar is right, yes, the structure is right, yes, that is the right word to use... So not good for them. At the same time, having such a large number of Arabic students, I see to be picking words and things from their language...funny.
- Have also started teaching advanced: how exciting! This would have never happened in Brighton! I was condemned to elementary and pre-intermediate, with the good excuse that nobody else was as good as me at those levels. Here they need someone for the advanced, and I am a teacher like anybody else, so here we go: it's so cool. Stressful as I have never taught it before, which means more preparation, but useful and interesting as it is good experience, and after three weeks I am confident enough to "try stuff", and the DELTA classes are very useful too, so have already recycled an idea, and probably will do again this week.
- Oh, am teaching my housemate this week. She's "blond", you know... Seriously stupid, I'm sorry to say. Called for hours on the Sunday she was supposed to arrive, until I finally picked up the phone, and then she told me that she was in London and would arrive at 3. Ehm...so what? Then on the first day she got lost and arrived at school late. Surprisingly she ended up being an upper-intermediate, in spite of her really bad comprehension and speaking skills, which include a really funny use of "hello" when she should actually say "goodbye".... Had to tell her off twice already for her extensive use of the bathroom when other people (read: me) need to use it too, and am looking forward to torment her in class, to be honest... The evil side of teaching...
In other news, am just back from an interesting albeit slightly disappointing day in London: but the exhibition at Tate was worth it indeed. And so was the lemon cake and coffee afterwards, and the stroll along the Thames with my friend, and the long talk we had about...everything, which for the moment means her acting, my teaching and studying, and John.
But this is a complicated side of the story, and too personal to mention here. I should be strictly a teacher online...So I'll go update my portfolio, then. And then, lesson planning, studying, note-taking, and Action Research Planning... This is a DELTA teacher's life.
So, for what is going on at the moment:
- started the DELTA. This means a looooot of work, tons of books to read, and stress levels as high as possible as I think of the observations, and of the little time I have to do everything... It does feel extremely good, though, when I see my desk crowded with books, and I spend weekends making notes, detailed tables, I jot down ideas, prepare students' questionnaires and learn of new ways to teach... I am a nerd, ultimately...
- contract extended until December, then we keep our fingers crossed, don't we? I do love it there: have just finished teaching the run with the hopeless L5 students, who are becoming more and more neurotic, suffering from acute blocking syndrome, which means that now they won't speak until they can see a positive reaction from me that confirms that yes, the grammar is right, yes, the structure is right, yes, that is the right word to use... So not good for them. At the same time, having such a large number of Arabic students, I see to be picking words and things from their language...funny.
- Have also started teaching advanced: how exciting! This would have never happened in Brighton! I was condemned to elementary and pre-intermediate, with the good excuse that nobody else was as good as me at those levels. Here they need someone for the advanced, and I am a teacher like anybody else, so here we go: it's so cool. Stressful as I have never taught it before, which means more preparation, but useful and interesting as it is good experience, and after three weeks I am confident enough to "try stuff", and the DELTA classes are very useful too, so have already recycled an idea, and probably will do again this week.
- Oh, am teaching my housemate this week. She's "blond", you know... Seriously stupid, I'm sorry to say. Called for hours on the Sunday she was supposed to arrive, until I finally picked up the phone, and then she told me that she was in London and would arrive at 3. Ehm...so what? Then on the first day she got lost and arrived at school late. Surprisingly she ended up being an upper-intermediate, in spite of her really bad comprehension and speaking skills, which include a really funny use of "hello" when she should actually say "goodbye".... Had to tell her off twice already for her extensive use of the bathroom when other people (read: me) need to use it too, and am looking forward to torment her in class, to be honest... The evil side of teaching...
In other news, am just back from an interesting albeit slightly disappointing day in London: but the exhibition at Tate was worth it indeed. And so was the lemon cake and coffee afterwards, and the stroll along the Thames with my friend, and the long talk we had about...everything, which for the moment means her acting, my teaching and studying, and John.
But this is a complicated side of the story, and too personal to mention here. I should be strictly a teacher online...So I'll go update my portfolio, then. And then, lesson planning, studying, note-taking, and Action Research Planning... This is a DELTA teacher's life.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)