This is our last week (*sob*) in
Elche, our last week of the UKLC Leonardo Project and I feel like I’ve come a
long way from when I arrived, green as a palm leaf, to Denbigh for our training
week. It’s true a lot was crammed into that week, but still I remember thinking
that it would never be enough for a whole month of teaching. But here I am
three weeks in with so much material and so many ideas still to use! I will be
very sad to leave the sun, the palm trees, the tapa, the company of the fantastic
bunch of people who make up the Spanish teaching crew, and all my lovely
students.
I have been working at Salesianos
with Alex, which has been absolutely fantastic. We were thrown in the deep end
on the first day with four classes, and we haven’t stopped teaching since. We
have total freedom to teach what we want and the teachers are very supportive.
Similarly to most other guys working in secondary schools, we teach a total of
18 classes but see each class only once a week for their freer English class…which
has its pros and cons! It’s a hell of a lot of kids to get to know, so, despite
getting each child to introduce themselves in the first week, I’ve long since
given up on remembering 300 names! On the plus side it makes for a lighter work
load, as two or three lesson plans will do for one week, and I can teach each
lesson until I’ve got it down to perfection J
The first
week I focused on introductions, which was really successful, and after a few
changes I found my best ‘get-to-know-you-lesson’ consisted of the ‘write your
name and draw two things you like doing’ activity followed by noughts and
crosses (apparently called ‘three in a line’ in Spain) which is always a hit
because they get so competitive! Finally I do the question swap game, where
they all get up, move around and speak English to eachother. Awesome. By the
end of week one I had this lesson so perfect I was getting applauded at the end
of it!
If only all
lessons went that well! Week two I moved onto The Empire State Building lesson,
which didn’t go down quite as well as it did with us eager teacher trainees in
Denbigh. I often found myself frustrated at students’ lack of imagination when
confronted with the puzzle of how you can jump off the Empire State Building
and survive. ‘Impossible’ they all said. And then, when persuaded that it
definitely was possible: ‘I can’t think of anything.’ Arghh! I did eventually
did get some good stories out of them, and one thing that rings true from our
training week in Denbigh is that you get the energy out of the students that
you put into your lesson, it’s all about selling it!
Third week
in we moved onto Prison Break! A lesson thought up by someone on the previous
Leonardo Trip. I thought, it’s got everything…violence, creativity and it’s all
about breaking the rules…what’s not to love for a teenager? Well.
The lesson starts with students calling out
objects beginning with C and animals beginning with S. I split the students
into groups and give each group two objects and one animal with which to plan
my demise. They love it. Hmm I wonder why! This leads into murderers being
criminals and criminals being thrown into jail. I then get them to design the
most secure jail in the world and send them off with paper and pencils
expecting barbed wire fences and dragons…what I actually see is a football
pitch, a Mercadona and a swimming pool! Eh!? At first I was mystified as to why
teenagers saw prison as a holiday park. Alex, obviously far more down with the
kids than I, put me straight. I’d thrown them
in prison, they’re designing a prison for themselves and therefore, it’s got to
have a football pitch. Duh. The solution? I put loads more energy into getting
the students enthusiastic about making a prison no-one can escape from, or,
failing that tell them to throw their classmates into jail.
As well as Salesianos, I have
been teaching evening classes at top school with a group of intermediate
adults. A whole different kettle of fish! I generally only have about three
students, maximum five, which makes group work difficult. They are very
motivated and really want to speak English, so I have been preparing discussion
topics for them and working on error correction and bringing in more colloquial
English phrases which they won’t have been able to learn from their other
teachers. My most successful lesson so far has been one where they discussed
good and bad laws in Spain and then in groups made they’re own perfect country
- choosing the language, whether there would be a death penalty, a religion
etc. They all loved it and loads of good language came up. I thought teaching
such eager learners would be much easier than a class of teenagers, but it’s a
real challenge; they constantly ask questions and want to learn new language
which requires a lot of skill to explain. I still have a long way to go!
One thing I've had to learn outside of the classroom in these last few weeks is how to share. Sharing a flat has been no problem, a last minute switch saw me relocated to a spacious and airy flat with two living rooms and an open plan kitchen. Every silver has its
Tuesday, 15 May 2012
Hi French lot! Hope all is going well? Just thought I would share a 2hour lesson that went really well the other day. I can't take full credit- Fozia, Amelia, Jocelyn and I came up with it during our training at Denbigh. It's great for adults and I'm sure teenagers will love it too.Works best with even numbers (over 4) but sure you can wangle it with odd numbers. I think we called it A Famous Scandal or something. Anyhow, it goes a little something like this:
Handout post-its and ask students to write a world wide famous person on it, but they have to keep it a secret! Put it on a partners head.
Students ask yes/no questions to find out who they have on their head. For lower level groups I elicited then modelled a few "Am I....." "Do I have...." questions on the board.
Tell students they are now this celebrity and in their pairs they need to make up a scandal that's happened between the two celebrities. (I had a pair who had Homer Simpson and the Pope!)
Before I set them off making up the scandal we together went through the difference between rumour, gossip and scandal on the board. I mimed gossip and asked some CCQ's for rumour and scandal (has this definitely happened?) I also went through some possible topics that a scandal might be about i.e relationships, sex, affairs, murder, money, an accident, drugs and drink, morals and religion (The Pope!), debauchery etc etc and where this might appear (tabloid/ radio/ TV/ magazine) It's also key that you get across that although there's one scandal they need two sides to the story (I put this on the board and asked what they thought it meant- they said two different opinions) for lower levels I used a model of a fight in a bar "Tom Cruise started the fight" said Brad Pitt, "NO! Brad started it!" said Tom Cruise.
Gave them quite a long time to get their stories straight (good phrase to teach also), helped with language and put any new vocab on board. I also gave them What, When, Who, Why and Where on board so they could get lots of info in their stories.
Then I told them that they would each take it in turns to be newsreporters trying to find out the truth about this scandal through interviewing the celebrities (let them know one person will be interviewing the two celebs at same time). When it comes to it, split up one pair at a time and get them to interview a celeb pair so more than one interview is going on at a time. Then another pair is split and become interviewers etc.
Put beginning of interview on board (elicited it) and said you can't just start asking questions about scandal straight away, you have to be natural and subtle about it. So start to conversation like: "It's a pleasure to meet you..."etc etc and after they have asked a few questions I then linked back to the idea of rumour by giving them the phrase "rumour has it/ there's a rumour something happened between you two....can you tell me more?" to find out about the scandal. I also told them to use the wh words to ask questions and find out as much as possible in the middle of interview. Tell interviewers to take notes on what they think really happened.
I elicited the end of the interview (ending conversation in natural way) and elicited phrases for the celebs to disagree with each and give opinions i.e "I'm sorry, I have to disagree" or "I think your wrong" or "In my opinion" etc etc. My students came up with some really good ones ranging from very polite (above) to "You're a liar!" (accompanied by slamming of fists on tables) and "Look here!" etc- there's loads.
Listen to interviews (each could have lasted 10mins a piece so give them a time limit), note down good and not so good language for delayed correction at end.
When they've done all interviews tell them they they are going to write a news report detailing the real story of celebs they interviewed- BREAKING NEWS!!!! I mimed a TV news report on a juicy scandal "News just it that Homer Simpson and the Pope were caught..."
Help with language, then hear news reports. Some of them were hilarious and really creative (I kept telling them be as creative as you can)
If you want to extend it further you can have the celebs writing a reply (a facebook or twitter feed for teenagers) defending their reputation (I put this on board and elicited meaning).
Et voila! 2 hours easily. Cheers Joss Fozia and Amelia, was a fun lesson. :)
Sitting
here in a spacious apartment in Elche, listening to the swallows chirping their
evening chorus to each other, I think to myself how much I don’t want to leave.
It all
began in Denbigh* with pre-project training and the whole gang of Leonardo aficionados.
From the word go all 30 of us were spoon fed mouthful after mouthful of task
based learning activities over a five day period to use in the classroom,
certainly leagues apart from the strictly scheduled lesson plans you draw up on
your CELTA and nervously stick to for fear of reprimand. Those days (you will
be ecstatic to hear) are long gone for now my friend you can actually relax in
your lessons and enjoy the teaching experience! With UKLC Leonardo training (and
the fountain of EFL teaching knowledge that is the course director, Michael) you
learn to go with the flow of your lesson, make learning fun, to turn your
thinking away from the bullet points of a plan and turn instead to the needs of
your students. Oh yeah, and you don’t need reams of photocopies and resources.
All you need is a good class activity and yourself.
And so to
your students...You will get to the end of your first week, I’m sure, and dread
the last Friday that you will have to say goodbye to your classes. I’ve been
given three different classes at Topschool (the partner school for the Project)
full of wonderful people; all adult classes, all fantastic characters and I am certainly
dreading the last Friday. I must admit when I discovered in Denbigh I was
teaching just adults I was a little disappointed and not to mention nervous. I’d
really hoped I’d be teaching secondary school kids, but I wouldn’t change that
for the world right now (although I would obviously still love to teach kids
and teenagers). During lessons my students have taught me about the Elche way
of life and they’ve made me feel welcome and part of the city “imás
español que inglesa!” They’ve been crucial in making my first taste of real
teaching fresh out of CELTA a great experience and they’ve embraced a new style
of teaching that many of them were unused to.
Talking of lessons, one thing I learnt quickly in the first
week is that your best resource is each other. Speaking to each other in the
evenings and sharing what went well and what didn’t go well is invaluable, not
to mention a lot easier than trawling through text books and fretting on your
own in a darkened, hot room, freaking out about what you’re teaching the
following morning (hrmph!! Me? Do that on the third night? Nooo, never!!
Honestly, just go out and get a caña y tapa and chat to your fellow teacher
buddies. Relax. It’s a much happier experience).
Elche is a place where life soporifically cranks down a
notch or two (or ten) on the life speedometer. Plazas and outside bars, palm
trees and beautiful old buildings, narrow back streets and lizards scurrying
along the pavement in 31 degrees heat - and more toy dogs you can shake out of
Paris Hilton’s handbag (the majority of which seem to be Yorkshire Terriers
with palm tree ponytails and florescent hair grips to keep their fringes out of
their eyes. Slightly odd.) And we have a Pug that lives on the roof terrace, a
friendly chap that snuffles in your face and definitely looks like an Alan. He
looks like an Alan to me anyway, I'm sure you'll agree...
I envy those of you who are going to be here in Elche this
time next year. I’m tempted to tell you all the best places to eat, to have a
drink (or chipito) or the prettiest streets to wander through but that would
take all the fun out of exploring the city. You might not get lost (essential
in a new city) and you might not wind your way through the inviting streets and
stop off at any one of the friendly cafes to plan your lessons….so all I will
say is happy teaching, happy exploring and happy travels! Good luck and enjoy!
*An aside
about Denbigh; the karaoke in The Vaults is a must, the food will stretch your
stomach in preparation for the copious amounts of tapas y cañas you will inevitably eat (although
try to resist) and it’s bloody cold in them there hills boyo. But it is beautiful.
And the training is more than a bit useful.
Can´t believe week two is nearly over and this is my first blog! That´s how crazily fun my time here in Elche has been so far!
I am now sat in an after school kid´s club next to top school (where I have made many lovely friends) and I am going to attempt to tell you all about my shannanigans here!
Since the first day, it has been a wonderful experience everyday. In the mornings/afternoons I teach at a Secondary School (Sixto Marco) where the teachers are extremely nice and laid back . Every other evening I teach adults at Top School which I enjoy very much. The students are absolutely great and I love teaching them. So much that I am going out for dinner with them next week! Aaron teaches the evenings I have off, and we often discuss our lessons beforehand to avoid any repitition. My timetable overall has been really good, teaching no more than 5 hours a day between sixto marco and top school. I think I am one of the lucky ones with a fairly easy timetable.. which means I have had plenty of time to make somes friends here.
As I don´t drink or go out partying I have managed to occupy my time in other ways. At the after school club I met two beautiful Morrocan ladies and one Algerian/Spanish. I often visit them most evenings even when I am not teaching at top school. They allow me to join their Spanish and Arabic lessons with the young kids, and also use the Internet whenever I wish. I have been out with them a few times now for ice cream and turkish tea. This weekend we hope to go to the beach!
I have also made friends with some guys from the local turkish restaurant (the only place that sells halal meat that i know of yet!) They have been very welcoming and often give me free tea and sheesha! So definitely can´t complain there!
Tomorrow I am going to lunch at Zainabs house (Zainab is one of the students from the after school club). Although her English is just as bad as my Spanish, we still manage to find ways of communicating. Thats the beauty of the people around here.. so welcoming and kind.
The rest of the group and I often meet up during lessons and in evenings, the weather is great so we go for walks, ice cream, frozen yogurt and have a drink in the evenings.
I am really enjoying my time here in Elche. UKLC have set up this programme so nicely, and thank God I have no issues so far. Life is great here.
So here is finally the promised post on the half-marathon and the non-teaching stuff. Given the attractions of Spain's fiesta culture and the chance on Friday and Saturday to have a more indulgent night, why would I choose to forgo these for a 21.1 km race at 9:30 on a Sunday morning?
Well, I do have a bit of history in this area. I'm very much a morning person who includes "Where can I run?" before "Where can I go out at night?" in the list of questions I ask when I arrive somewhere new. I first gained Wales international vests in road & cross-country running in 2009 and arrived in Spain hoping to maintain fitness in the hope of selection for Wales in the Great Manchester Run the day after returning from Elche later this month.
For most of my colleagues on the Leonardo project, however, I would be known for my distance runner's typical split leg shorts rather than any athletic accomplishment by the end of our time in Denbigh. This was helpfully reinforced by Michael's locked room mystery on the theft of my shorts on the last Saturday before leaving Denbigh.
Once I got to Elche and started to recce places to run and a track to train on when not teaching, I quickly found out that a half marathon was due to take place in Elche on May 6th. My curiosity suitably piqued, I asked one of the distance runners at the track if the registration was still open. He directed me towards "the bald guy with the beard" on the infield for all information on the half marathon. Having found out that the start was a less than 5 min jog from our apartment and that this was the oldest half in the world, I was sold. I was told that I could either enter online or in person at the tienda de Caldon, I thought I'd go for the latter option, where I could get information in person if I wasn't confident in Spanish dealing with all the details on the website. This was however where my Spanish did let me down, as while I was asking if anyone knew roughly where this shop called Caldon was, I found out within a couple of days that what I had in fact been told was tienda Decathlon. Having got my entry sorted, I learnt at school that PE teacher Juan Llopis had also entered and a pint was bet on the outcome of our battle to add a little bit of spice to the race.
Now often for a Sunday race, I'm rooming with other athletes the night before or travelling with other athletes on the morning of the race. This race involved passing Saturday with a more than slightly hungover group of teachers in our apartment whose Friday night had not involved resting for a race. Not wanting to particularly spend all day on foot around Elche the day before the race, I was more than happy to have company that was not in the mood for moving anywhere fast. I got the tea and food that they needed to fight very sore heads and the next morning, I got the support round the course from Alex, Jess and Steph that I very much needed to overcome the protestations of my legs. As I passed them on the Ferrocaril bridge for the first time at 2km, I was tucked in to a lead group with five Moroccan guys who would be my company for the next few kms.
Unfortunately after a nice steady 5 kms in 16:05, they injected a 5kms so fast that my 15:30 for this section still saw me dropping off them, and facing a long and gradually slowing Sunday slog. By the time I came back through Paseo de l'Estacion where we had begun, the race was in its 17th km and they were well out of sight but I was greeted by the support group of earlier in the race on the bridge, and believe me, at this point I needed it! One more encounter a couple of kms later with Alex and his camera, and it was just a matter of hanging on for the finish in warmth now up into the 20s - which I'm sure was nice for spectating, but not for a runner already losing time hand over fist.
As I turned into the finish straight, I could see the finish clock just ticked past 69 minutes, and I had a half marathon personal best dating from 2010 of 69:28. I might have been dropped by the leaders but I was not letting the personal best go, and what passed in that state of fatigue for a flat out sprint was unleashed to bring me through the line in 69:24 for 6th place, a new PB and my bet won as Juan would not cross the line for another 25 minutes.
(above) early on in the lead group
(left) battling away on my own later on
The sprint for sixth
A post race massage and telling off from a chiropodist for the lack of attention I pay to my battered distance runner's toes later, I was reunited with the fantastic supporters I had en route. Alex, Steph, Jess and I enjoyed the rest of the day indulging in a marathon of a more gourmet nature, but Alex's blog is the place to go for that story and the accompanying photos of great food.
Possibly amused by another 'short shorts' joke after the race
So what other extra-curricular activities does this trip offer? Well for some it's the beaches that you can get to a short bus ride away, for others it's Spain's late night fiesta opportunities, or just sun-bathing in Elche's amazing palm grove. My own favourite experiences have included going to church over here where I received great hospitality and the chance to test my Spanish skills by following a Bible study with some of the other young people in the church. Also, getting out to run in the hills to the north of Elche and getting to see bits of the area on foot that nobody else has got to explore in the group was cool. Miriam, Steph and I also took the chance to travel to Alicante where we met up with Mary from the Leonardo French group visiting her Spanish beau, while also taking the chance to meet up with us on the Saturday evening of the first weekend. There were also two birthdays as Alex and Steph became a year wiser.
Steph and Alex giving an accurate assessment of how nice the birthday cake was!
The owner of the short shorts is enjoying life in Elche and best of all I've received confirmation of my selection in the Wales team after we get back. Next time it'll be back to blogging about the teaching and maybe an end of project post about my overall feeling about how it's gone.
A picture says a thousand words.. This picture says one.
Hey! I’m Alex, I’m 20 and my UKLC adventure began a couple
of months ago. I’d been looking for summer jobs as a sneaky way to jump onto
the tefl ladder - I didn’t think I had a chance of finding a job as a full time
teacher without experience and a degree - when I stumbled across the Leonardo
Project that UKLC were offering.
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!
Howell's School, Denbigh
11th April 2012
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.
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!
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!
Nervous much? Of course not..
21st April
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.
Oh, hello Spain..
..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
Rocking up to Salesianos
I’ve joined all these days
together as many of these lessons were very similar. I’m teaching 11-18 year
olds with Steph in a semi-private school called Salesianos and we’re sharing
evening classes teaching adults in Top School. The class sizes in Salesianos
are anything between 25+ and 10, whereas the Top School group is rarely more
than 5 people. This said, on one occasion I found myself standing in front of
36 13-14 year olds for the last lesson of what had quite easily been one of the
hottest days so far. This is not a situation one can prepare for and should you
find yourself in such a situation, I wish you the best of luck. All of the
classes are about an hour in length.
Ooh, Salesianos again.
This week I spent mainly focusing
on introductions – if there’s one thing I took from the training week, it’s
that a good teacher student rapport is essential. All of my lessons started
with a bit of an introduction about me; my name and two of my favourite things
which I asked the students to guess from the pictures. I got them to produce
their own name card thing before asking them to tell the rest of the class
their name and what they like. A couple of extension questions broke the
monotony and gave them each a chance to say a bit more. This also proved quite
effective for gauging the students’ actual levels.
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!
Did someone say something about Leonardo?
30th April – 5th
May
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.
Lesson planning like you've never seen it before!
This was my 4th Top
School lesson and something about these lessons isn’t clicking. Can’t quite put
my finger on it, maybe it’s just that it’s lacking the energy that goes hand in
hand with teaching teenagers but whatever it is, these lessons don’t seem to go
as smoothly as I hope even though the group is very cooperative. Stand by for
updates.
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.
Om..
nom..
nom..
nom..
NOM!
7th May – 9th
May
Half way through week 3 and
things are coming together now. Woop!
Classroom management takes time
to learn – please realise this! As Jacque and Carol said, rule with an iron
fist in a velvet glove. You need the balance of being friendly and jolly and
being assertive. You must nip any bad behaviour in the bud. It’ll come
with practice. Chill.
Glorieta by night!
With regards to my Top School lessons,
they seem to be working a little better now. All of my lessons are running over
the hour as students aren’t shuffling towards the door as soon as they sense
the 8pm finish approaching. These are adults, they respond much better to
challenging or, in some cases, controversial topics. Also, as there is less of
them, they tend to finish their work sooner so prepare for this. I have learnt,
however, I need to improve how I keep a conversation alive while not actually
participating in it. I’m learning though.
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!
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.
Windy Santa Pola
Mmm :) Sunny Arenales
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.
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! :(
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.
Elche's Cathedral
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!
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.
The Leonardos in Top School
Mmm! Even more good food!
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!".
