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| A picture says a thousand words.. This picture says one. |
A month’s experience in France or Spain, a First Aid
qualification and a sports leadership certificate as well as a goody bag of
other treats aimed at newly qualified teachers? Yes please!
I was invited to an interview in London where I met Celine,
Michael, Catherine and 11 interviewees. After some formalities, we were given some
information on UKLC, who they are, what they’re all about, who’s behind it etc.
and then conducted our own 3-5 minute warmer/fluency exercise to the rest of
the group.
Some good ideas floating about already, I jotted a couple down and
we all had a chuckle when Hywel put his jeans on his head.
We were then given the task of planning a lesson in 40
minutes, drawing inspiration from what some might call a textbook. Any one
fresh out of CELTA will know this is no mean feat. We did it though! To round it
all off, we presented our lesson plans to the other groups and were given a bit
more information about the project.
10th April 2012
The next time I saw the crew, we were in Howell’s school in
Denbigh, North Wales and had been joined by everyone from the Manchester and
telephone interviews. After refuelling on free cups of tea and coffee in le cafe rouge we joined Michael for fun
games for the language classroom and an introduction to TBLT.
By the end of the afternoon we each had an arsenal of games
which were easy to set up and could be used as some curious platforms to some
really cracking lessons. We managed to get 6 theoretical teaching hours from
Michael asking “How old are my shoes?”! En serio!
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| Howell's School, Denbigh |
Day two kicked off with some language lessons in the morning
but soon we were doing chest compressions and giving mouth to mouth as our
First Aid course got underway. The guys giving the course were great, they knew
their stuff and the hands on approach made the content easy to learn, as well
as being a good opportunity for a giggle.
12th April 2012
Day three was a long, old day!
9-10! That’s 13 hours! Although, in fairness, it was 13 hours of golden
information. TBL actually meant something to me after today! The morning
session was making the most of resources,
which in the first example was, well, no more than a whiteboard, some paper, a
few pens and the teacher. “You are only limited by your imagination” Michael
Hudson. And he was spot on when he said that as by the afternoon we were
creating our own lessons to give to the rest of the group – lessons that really
had to be extracted, not from text books but live music posters and tourist
brochures etc. I felt the lesson my group and I ended up creating was a bit poo
really but we’d restricted ourselves too much. Can’t quite break this rigid
CELTA thinking! The other groups produced some fantastic lessons and really
showed what was capable if you allowed yourself to think a little freer.
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| Every day starts with this view. Not too shabby! |
In the afternoon, a couple of
guys from Big Tree Training gave us our first aid training. We’re all certainly
going to remember it – maybe for different reasons – but they certainly knew
what they were on about. They imparted some great knowledge onto us which,
hopefully, we will never have to use. That said, it another thing to add to the
CV and that knowledge may one day save a life. Sweet!
The evening was spent with Keith
and Nathan for our sport leadership certificate. Nathan is as cool as a
cucumber, very calm, very measured. Keith, on the other hand, is a coke and freddo fuelled bundle of energy. Great guys really, and with their help we’re
now all set to coach kids who find themselves wanting to impersonate various
types of bean.
13th & 14th
April
These two days were pretty
similar really – that’s not to say that they were boring or anything like that though.
I’d say it was the perfect way to wind down the training week. The information
Jacque and Carol fed to us over these days seemed to round off everything that
we’d learnt from CELTA and the three days previous. Jacque and Carol, by the
way, are younger learner teachers who have considerable experience teaching
English to this demographic and had flown from Switzerland especially to teach
us for these two days. (If you’re reading this, by the way, thank you so much!)
They covered everything really;
classroom management, techniques for creating silence and how to build a good
rapport with your students, to name a few. We were told what they were teaching
us was for younger learners but there were 31 people in that room (all 20+
years old) enjoying these lessons as much as the 5 year olds that are lucky
enough to have these two as teachers.
The training week ended just
after lunch and it was genuinely quite sad knowing the next time we’d be seeing
each other, 16 of the 31 weren’t going to be there. On the bright side though,
we had a few days to practice ‘the look’ before we’d be teaching!
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| Happy teachers! |
19th April
Back in Denbigh again! I arrived
a bit earlier than the rest of the group as I wanted to have a bit of practice
teaching before leaving. Spent the day with Hywel, Richard Gunion and Kiri playing
about with lesson plans, swapping ideas etc. Very laid back day! :)
20th April
Kicked off the day teaching a
three hour lesson to a group of Italian kids, preparing them for their
afternoon in Chester. Good lesson and I’m now a bit more relaxed about the
month ahead. As an added bonus, the rest of the group will be joining us
tonight. Woop!
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| Nervous much? Of course not.. |
Full schedule today! Started with
classroom games and activities (more goodies!) before going to to complete our
europass CVs and language passports. Not the most exciting but it’s necessary
for future funding bids! Finished the day with a language lesson from native
Spaniards and a cheeky trip to one of the finest pubs Denbigh has to offer.
22nd April
SPAIN! Very early start today.
Too early, in fact! Left Denbigh at 3am and went to Manchester airport from
where we would be flying to Alicante. Made it into Alicante without any
hiccups, although there was some nail biting when the bags took a more than a
while to come through the airport! We then met Libertad who issued us all with
our information packs before heading our separate ways to our flats. Spent the
afternoon exploring what we’d call home for the next month and, of course,
getting well acquainted with Flashpoint.
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| Oh, hello Spain.. |
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| ..and hello Glorieta! |
23rd April
This morning we met at top school
to receive our timetables for the next month and then were divided into two
groups for our first of two language lessons; lower level and higher level. The
higher level class was good and the feedback from the other half of the group
seemed pretty positive too. Happy days! Some of us were teaching tonight but
there were a few hours to plan, although with Michael’s help, that was maybe an
hour of planning and a couple more to chill out and discover the beautiful palm
parks Elche has to offer.
24th April – 27th
April
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| Rocking up to Salesianos |
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| Ooh, Salesianos again. |
Depending on how well they did
that, I either did a quick grammar focus or moved onto the next activity. ‘I
like play football’ is a very common mistake so 5 minutes spent on discussing
how we can say this is pretty useful really. The next activity was either
noughts and crosses, where the students formed the questions needed to produce
one of the answers that were in each section of the grid or Who am I?, where I asked the students to
rummage through my bag and make a few guesses at who I am and what I’m all
about. Both of these can be tweaked to push the students but as a general rule
of thumb, leave the who am I? game
for higher level students.
With some of the younger learners
we discussed classroom rules and got them to create their own and also some for
me. Seems fair really! With older learners, this really isn’t necessary –
they’re aware of all this.
Time permitting, I’d finish with either a
game; the alphabet game or the count to 10 game, or I’d finish with the
question swap milling activity. You’ve got to remember, it’s VITAL to model EVERYTHING
and if you’re doing the who am I?
activity you must empty your wallet of money before someone does it for you.
Not that I’ve made that mistake!
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| Did someone say something about Leonardo? |
Monday’s lessons followed the
same format as those in the previous week. I hadn’t met these students so it
was necessary really. Tuesday was May bank holiday so there were no classes in
Salesianos although I did
teach in Top School in the evening.
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| Lesson planning like you've never seen it before! |
The lessons I chose for the rest
of the week were either “I’ve just jumped off the Empire State building..” or
Prison Break, both of which passed with varying degrees of success. Some
lessons were awesome; I came out having covered everything I wanted to and even
had a bit of time spare, whereas some felt like I’d been flogging a dead horse
for 55 minutes in a class of students who couldn’t have cared less. Very
frustrating!
The Empire State building lesson
usually felt like it lost its momentum by the end of the hour, but that’s my
fault. The prison break lesson, I found, was so successful that when the bell
went I was always surprised at how quickly the lesson had gone. If you’re going
to do this, by the way, do not ask them to design prisons for themselves – it will
have a theatre, a selection of live music acts, a penguin zone(!) etc. Instead,
ask them to design a prison for their classmates. It’ll work better!
I've tried to make teaching the main focus of this blog but I couldn't not share this with you. You've seen the crystal clear cyan skies, you've read about the teaching techniques (OK, enough alliteration) and now.. THE FOOD! We're eating like kings here and following Hywel's half marathon, the man in short shorts, Steph, Jess and I went on a marathon of our own - Maratón de tapas!
I think we made it to 5 different restaurants and had about 8 dishes of spectacular tapa. As for the winner, it had to be the sepia and chive burgers with black ali-oli topped with a prawn with a valiant effort from the tempura prawn and vegetables.
I've tried to make teaching the main focus of this blog but I couldn't not share this with you. You've seen the crystal clear cyan skies, you've read about the teaching techniques (OK, enough alliteration) and now.. THE FOOD! We're eating like kings here and following Hywel's half marathon, the man in short shorts, Steph, Jess and I went on a marathon of our own - Maratón de tapas!
I think we made it to 5 different restaurants and had about 8 dishes of spectacular tapa. As for the winner, it had to be the sepia and chive burgers with black ali-oli topped with a prawn with a valiant effort from the tempura prawn and vegetables.
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| Om.. |
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| nom.. |
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| nom.. |
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| nom.. |
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| NOM! |
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| Glorieta by night! |
Also, I’m getting a feel for the
students in Salesianos. I know which classes are going to be tricky and I know
which classes are going to gobble up the work I give them before hungrily
asking for more. It’s a shame I have each class only once a week (and in some
cases only once a fortnight) as the student teacher relationship takes a lot
longer to form when it’s like this but I understand why the school works it
this way. Anyway, it’s late and I have lessons to plan. Hasta pronto!
Back to teaching, I still have lessons which bomb completely but I also have the lessons which exceed all expectations. I guess I'm still learning - I wouldn't be doing this if I was a perfect teacher! Things are definitely coming together though.
14th May
Week 4 is under way and I'm astounded by how fast everything is going by. The majority of us have just spent the weekend sunbathing and relaxing at Arenales - a pleasant change from Santa Pola, which is more suited to kite surfers and wind surfers than sun bathers.
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| Windy Santa Pola |
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| Mmm :) Sunny Arenales |
This week I'll be continuing with the Prison Break lessons, asking students to break out of their super secure prisons with some bits 'n' bobs from around the flat (dental floss, a light bulb, a plug, etc.). I did it with some groups today and it went pretty well. I had some fantastic stories from some really creative students. I'll keep you posted how it goes with the rest of my classes this week.
For my lowest class (both age and level) I looked at the weather and got them to create their own forecasts using various future constructions. Some of them were great, many not so great. Next time I teach the weather, I either need to put in some more ground work to really engage them in the topic or vary the exercises they use to practise talking about the weather.
4 days of teaching left in Elche! :(
More Prison Breaks and even a weather lesson that I felt was needed in order to redeem myself after yesterday... Well, that was nice obviously but the main aim was to get students talking, using future constructions forecasting the weather, not to make myself feel better!
15th May
I'm tempted to delete everything I blogged yesterday. What an awesome day! Every lesson ended on a high and I'm sure (or at least I want to believe!) that it's because both the students and I enjoyed the lessons and covered more than we expected and not because each lesson this week is the last lesson I'll have with these guys.
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| Elche's Cathedral |
Yesterday, for my Prison Break lesson, I asked one student per group to come up and collect up to 3 items their group would use to escape their prisons. Today, however, I laid out all 15 objects and said they must use a minimum of 5 in order to escape. For one, their stories were longer and more detailed and secondly, it gave them a chance to learn vocab that they otherwise wouldn't have learnt. Happy days!
My weather lesson today, started much as my weather lesson started yesterday; with a clip of Prince Charles presenting the weather forecast.
However, today, before watching the video, I asked them to have pens and paper at the ready and to scribble down any weather words they heard. This acted as a lovely little springboard to get them to brainstorm all weather types before eliciting forms and getting them to produce their own 7 day weather forecast for a city of their choice. This is where my lesson flopped yesterday as many found it too easy.
Today, I pushed them and was rewarded with some excellent weather forecasts, utilising the IWB and google maps. Derek Brockway eat your heart out!
3 days of teaching left in Elche! :'(
21st May
I'm back! I'm in the UK and my time in Elche is over - at least for now. The last three days there just got better and better, complemented by two awesome nights out with my fellow Leonardos. The first of these was a group meal, kindly paid for by Christine Top, and the second, a chance (for those of us with it!) to let our hair down.
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| The Leonardos in Top School |
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| Mmm! Even more good food! |
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| Steph and I with Susi, Ana Cari, Begoña (in a very appropriate t-shirt!) and Gloria. |
I'm now in Denbigh where I am teaching this week and will be teaching throughout July. There was also talk of work going in the new academic year in Elche so it appears I've already made that jump onto the TEFL ladder, and not all that sneakily.
So, I've gone from CELTA accredited newbie to genuine English language teacher in little more than 6 weeks. I'm still learning but I've already learnt things I'll never forget, I've met some of the most amazing people imaginable and I couldn't be happier.
None of this happened by magic, though. There was a whole host of people working away in order for us to have this truly unforgettable start to our new careers and I'd like to say a MASSIVE thanks to all of them: Celine Aloe, Michael Hudson, Catherine Grieveson, Christine Top, Libertad, Vicky, Gloria, Begoña, Ana Cari and Susi in Salesianos, Jacque, Carol, Richard Gunion, Nathan, Keith, the guys at Big Tree Training and anyone that I might've missed out. You've all made this experience what it was and I think I speak for everyone when I say "Cheers!".
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