On the first day of teaching my true love said to me...
this isn't as scary as I thought...
Well here I am! I have officially survived my first class as a teacher! *and the crowd goes wild!* It was very mellow. I followed my momma's suggestion, and kept it really simple. We started with a few introductions, and talked about what we did for the summer. Then I had them write me a letter introducing themselves to me. You know, my name is..., I want to learn English because..... We spent the rest of the class just chatting (we call that a "conversation class" in TEFLese) and I dismissed them a couple of minutes early. You know I'm a real teacher because I assigned homework! I asked them to each bring a photo from home next week, along with a written paragraph about the picture or the people in it. I'm going to have them swap photos and write a story about someone else's picture. Neat idea, eh? And no, it's not particularly kosher, but we don't have a textbook yet, and I figured that this was interesting idea to work with. This class was a beautiful one to start with; 3 women, one my age, and two mum's age, and all very friendly and willing to talk. Half the battle is won if your students will actually try to speak English.
I think that this is my only class this week... everything else starts up next week (first week of October). I hope I can stay busy this week! Josh and I are going to go to the zoo, and I'm going to try and find some art galleries to look at. I'm also going to try and find out about the ladies' Bible study at the International Baptist Church (IBC), and see if that fits in my schedule (we tend to teach a lot in the evenings, which makes other things difficult).
We went out for dinner tonight to say goodbye to Sydney, one of our classmates. He's El Salvadorian, raised in New York, taught in China, met his girlfriend in Romania, and they are moving to Turkey. *whew* He's a great guy, and I'm really going to miss him. Dinner was really nice. We went to the Oompah place, which had no oompah-ing tonight (did I tell you about the oompah place? the one lady could SO not play the tuba....) Josh brought along an American girl that he met in a bar last night, and she was so nice! We chatted quite a bit. She's travelling all through Eastern Europe by herself for 5 weeks. We've got her interested in TEFL now, so maybe she'll come back to Oxford TEFL later!
I would just like to let you all know that:
When I lived in Prague, I had to walk home uphill BOTH WAYS.
Sort of. What that means is that I live on the top of a hill, and no matter which way home I come, I have to hike the hill. My knees keep whispering "why don't you get up on Grandpa's shoulders? why don't you get up on Grandpa's shoulders?" (family joke... sorry to those of you who just don't understand why I wrote that!) It's fabulous first thing in the morning... you wake up, eat a light breakfast, head out the door, and trot, nay skip and gambol, down the hill on your way to an exciting day. On the way home... well, you get to the bottom of the hill, sigh, debate fighting the bum on the corner for his cardboard box (clearly hyperbole... there aren't a lot of bums on corners here) to sleep in rather than hiking the hill. Then you trudge, one slow, sad foot after another, up the steeeeeeeeeeeeeep, tiring, cobblestone hill. Your front door has never looked so good!
Then you get inside, and your real dilemma begins: stairs, or the elevator? We live in Ap't #1, which is on the fourth floor, which is actually the fifth floor (pick your jaws up off of the floor, it's not that confusing *wink*) and it's a looooooooong way up those stairs after that loooooooooong trip up the hill. The elevator is enough to make you consider it. Imagine my parents' home. You walk into the kitchen, turn past the cupboards, head down the hallway to the end, turn left into the yellow bedroom, and face the closet. The teeny, tiny closet. That holds a max of 3 people, 250 kg. Yeah. That's the elevator, folks. It's tiny. It doesn't have a real door. It has like an office door, which doesn't move with you. You can actually touch the wall as it moves past you on your ascent/descent. Crazy! I shall take pictures! Better yet, come and visit, and I'll let you ride in it!
But Megan is saying it's time to go, so I shall say goodbye. I love you all, especially Hilary who emailed me.
Love always,
Elizabeth
Well here I am! I have officially survived my first class as a teacher! *and the crowd goes wild!* It was very mellow. I followed my momma's suggestion, and kept it really simple. We started with a few introductions, and talked about what we did for the summer. Then I had them write me a letter introducing themselves to me. You know, my name is..., I want to learn English because..... We spent the rest of the class just chatting (we call that a "conversation class" in TEFLese) and I dismissed them a couple of minutes early. You know I'm a real teacher because I assigned homework! I asked them to each bring a photo from home next week, along with a written paragraph about the picture or the people in it. I'm going to have them swap photos and write a story about someone else's picture. Neat idea, eh? And no, it's not particularly kosher, but we don't have a textbook yet, and I figured that this was interesting idea to work with. This class was a beautiful one to start with; 3 women, one my age, and two mum's age, and all very friendly and willing to talk. Half the battle is won if your students will actually try to speak English.
I think that this is my only class this week... everything else starts up next week (first week of October). I hope I can stay busy this week! Josh and I are going to go to the zoo, and I'm going to try and find some art galleries to look at. I'm also going to try and find out about the ladies' Bible study at the International Baptist Church (IBC), and see if that fits in my schedule (we tend to teach a lot in the evenings, which makes other things difficult).
We went out for dinner tonight to say goodbye to Sydney, one of our classmates. He's El Salvadorian, raised in New York, taught in China, met his girlfriend in Romania, and they are moving to Turkey. *whew* He's a great guy, and I'm really going to miss him. Dinner was really nice. We went to the Oompah place, which had no oompah-ing tonight (did I tell you about the oompah place? the one lady could SO not play the tuba....) Josh brought along an American girl that he met in a bar last night, and she was so nice! We chatted quite a bit. She's travelling all through Eastern Europe by herself for 5 weeks. We've got her interested in TEFL now, so maybe she'll come back to Oxford TEFL later!
I would just like to let you all know that:
When I lived in Prague, I had to walk home uphill BOTH WAYS.
Sort of. What that means is that I live on the top of a hill, and no matter which way home I come, I have to hike the hill. My knees keep whispering "why don't you get up on Grandpa's shoulders? why don't you get up on Grandpa's shoulders?" (family joke... sorry to those of you who just don't understand why I wrote that!) It's fabulous first thing in the morning... you wake up, eat a light breakfast, head out the door, and trot, nay skip and gambol, down the hill on your way to an exciting day. On the way home... well, you get to the bottom of the hill, sigh, debate fighting the bum on the corner for his cardboard box (clearly hyperbole... there aren't a lot of bums on corners here) to sleep in rather than hiking the hill. Then you trudge, one slow, sad foot after another, up the steeeeeeeeeeeeeep, tiring, cobblestone hill. Your front door has never looked so good!
Then you get inside, and your real dilemma begins: stairs, or the elevator? We live in Ap't #1, which is on the fourth floor, which is actually the fifth floor (pick your jaws up off of the floor, it's not that confusing *wink*) and it's a looooooooong way up those stairs after that loooooooooong trip up the hill. The elevator is enough to make you consider it. Imagine my parents' home. You walk into the kitchen, turn past the cupboards, head down the hallway to the end, turn left into the yellow bedroom, and face the closet. The teeny, tiny closet. That holds a max of 3 people, 250 kg. Yeah. That's the elevator, folks. It's tiny. It doesn't have a real door. It has like an office door, which doesn't move with you. You can actually touch the wall as it moves past you on your ascent/descent. Crazy! I shall take pictures! Better yet, come and visit, and I'll let you ride in it!
But Megan is saying it's time to go, so I shall say goodbye. I love you all, especially Hilary who emailed me.
Love always,
Elizabeth
posted by Elizabeth @ 01:35
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