CELTA Week IV: okey dokey!

After piecing together what was left of my sanity I set off to begin my final week of CELTA.
I was pleased to have passed Assignment 3 first time and was keen to maintain the upward curve with my TP lessons.
We, the class, had discussed what we might do on Friday the last and final day of our course.
It was suggested that we go for a meal and a few drinks after.

In the fourth and final week of CELTA I taught my last two hours of TP.

So, the pressure was on.
I was keen to make an impression and leave on a high (as much for my own gratification and self-esteem!).
My 'th' problems persisted but I was improving (and I still am!).

I was feeling the fatigue this week but finally there was light at the end of the tunnel and we were pretty confident that it was not the light of an oncoming train to flatten us and any vestiges of hope.  We were almost ripe for the real world.

I had a short grammar lesson on Tuesday.  Admittedly I struggled a little but thankfully some of the students were able to navigate my labyrinthine explanations and enlightened the other students regarding the obscure grammatical of English (when to use -ed and -ing).

These were the days were we made our last excursions to Londis for the infamous chicken baguettes and lo-and behold (John) we did not succumb to rickets.  CELTA be praised!

I met with one of my old war buddies, Karl, from my MA class on Tuesday and we went to the Woolshed for some grub and a catch-up.  Twas a positive experience and although we were almost out the door once we found ourselves turning around and partaking in more conversation.  Karl convinced me (well, one of the many convincers) to attend my MA graduation.

The next day I was a little tired.  I got up hastily threw a breakfast together and dashed for the train only to find it had been delayed.  Normally, I believe this would have left me unperturbed but because I was feeling a little guilty I called up CELTA and apologised for iarnroid eireann's shortcomings...
This was acceptable.

Copious mugs of tea later I was feeling re-invigorated.
It was Wednesday and our month long test of endurance was almost at an end.  We had lost no more troops, day one was the only time we witnessed any casualties.
We heard many wonderful stories of students throwing down their CELTA 5, books by Parrot and Swan and simply walking out of the room and out of the building without so much as a glance behind.  This dramatic gesture was made all the more ridiculous by the fact that one gent even left his coat behind.
I reckon he got as far as the street before blushing.
No possessing any special ninja skills his only other option was to either endure humiliation or buy a new coat.
Sounds like he chose the latter.

Apart from the set back with trains Wednesday proved uneventful.

Thursday was my last day of TP.
I had the best intentions of playing various game and doing so many wonderful things leaving my students enlightened and energised.  It didn't go quite like that but I believe it went very well!
I taught a vocabulary lesson and it involved household items.
My old enemy 'th' made an appearance in the form of 'needle and thread'.
After wrestled with my tongue for a number of seconds and trying to savagly bite it into submission I realised that one of the students, Jaime, had mastered the art of 'th' so I immediately encouraged him to speak louder and proceeded to 'spread the knowledge' drilling the class.

One of the most bizarre occurrences in the class was when the students insisted I teach them the meaning of 'okey-dokey'.  A slip of the tongue on my part but they were fascinated by the expression.  Little did I envisage the ripples it would have...
After drawing, miming and dancing I conveyed the meaning of each piece of vocabulary and shortly thereafter the lesson was over.  Time was up.

I left elated.
The burden of CELTA lifted and as I swaggered to my seat at the back of the classroom one student even took the time to commend me on my lesson.
'That was a great lesson.'
I am not sure how sincere he was but I was willing to graciously accept all compliments.
The tutor agreed I was much more comfortable in that TP.

We had one more lesson to prepare but it was to be unobserved.

That evening my classmate, Peter, and I went next door to enjoy a few winding down drinks.  We discussed the month we had almost completed, the people we had met and the friends we had made.  We chatted for many hours before we agreed that we had best go our own way.  We had discussed war and women in adequate detail.

On Friday we had our last hours with the class.  There was a cocktail party and a board game among other activities.  At about 10 o'clock we went upstairs to present the students with a certificate and dip into the buffet food.  There was plenty of tea to enjoy and a few doughnuts.  We took some photos and it seems the Spanish students opted for 'okey-dokey' rather than the traditional 'cheese.'  It's nice to leave a lasting impression!

We made provisional arrangements and agreed to meet the class later in the evening when we would head out and hit Dublin city with a ferocious coiled fist that could only have come from 4 intense weeks of study.  Caged animals we were and now we were being re-released into the wild.
We pondered briefly what post-CELTA trauma might be like and where we would all end up within the next few weeks and months.

We went next door for some dinner and drinks.
Afterwards, we lost some of our group who had to such rudimentary things as change their clothing and power nap.

And then there were men.
The lads wandered around aimlessly (as they tend to do without women to guide them) and eventually we decided on the Pav.  So, in our little mob we walked up to Trinity and sat down on the grass to pontificate and philosophize.
There we stayed until 9 o'clock before we decided to move to our agreed rendezvous point by the Spire.
We met with some of our classmates and students and proceeded toward Messrs Maguire to continue the conversations we had been kindling.

We lost a few of our troops shortly after the first hurdle but many of us persevered.

It was suggested we reconvene at Hogans and so we set off.
Sadly, we were separated from the herd but Imelda, her sister Joanne and myself pushed on through the crowds of Templebar and with much ado we reached our destination.
We met our troops within the premises sometime later and were collectively relieved to find they had not deserted us.

We talked on; deliberating and liberating minds.  We watched the taxis roll in and pundits fall in.

Our month long tour of the English language was almost at an end.  We delayed for as long as we could but it was time to return to our 'normal' lives.

We vowed to keep in touch.

Time will tell where the winds will scatter us.
Austria, Peru, France, Spain, China. . .

CELTA Week III

CELTA WEEK III

30.VII.2012 - 03.VIII.2012

It was Saturday and I didn’t much feel like moping around Maynooth on my own.  My little sister was driving back to Monaghan so I thought I’d tag along.  After a few cryptic messages and confusing phone calls I agreed to meet her at (or around) Samuel Beckett bridge.

I was running a wee bit late so out of courtesy I sent her a text.  She told me she’d be there around 1pm.  I got there and I waited.  She was late.

A group of small boys rushed by me and climbed onto the walls of the bridge.  Most of them, bar one or two, were dressed in wet suits.  No sooner had they mounted the wall that they jumped off of it.  All of them.  One after the other.  I was relieved to see they could swim but alarmed to see them climb out and back onto the bridge wall.  I looked around to see if there was a parent or guardian nearby.  There were none.  I began to worry that people would assume I was the guardian, and a pretty lousy one at that.  Then, the real fear struck me-that the public would not view me as a concerned bystander but an active pervert.  I loitered for a while but slowly and inconspicuously put some distance between myself and the reckless children.

After a while of nervously glancing over my shoulder fearing I would become a victim of circumstance I got a phone call.  When I was doing my best not to be noticed my sister had drove past in her car.  Further confusion ensued.  Eventually we established her location in relation to mine.  I found the car climbed in and we were off to Monaghan.  Thankfully, the most dramatic part of the day was at an end.  I didn’t much feel like doing CELTA work so I relaxed making only a cursory glance at my TEFL notes to soothe my guilty conscience.

My older brother and I discussed the prospect of going to the cinema.  I had seen the new Batman movie but unfortunately he had not.  I was certainly not opposed to viewing it again and we settled on a Sunday evening show.

However, an alarming prospect came to mind.  It was a Bank holiday weekend and neither buses nor trains would travel regularly on Monday.  My plans to disembark early Monday morning disintegrated.  I tried to find a feasible solution but sadly I had no choice but to make my journey to Maynooth Sunday evening.  A little over 24 hours since I left.  I begrudgingly accepted defeat.

I had a mug of tea to ease my pain.

They warned us that CELTA week three was when most students cracked.

I made a personal vow that they would not break me.

I had two half hour lessons that week and an assignment.

My first Teaching Practice (TP) was on Tuesday.

It troubles me to admit that at some point during the week I began to lose the plot a little.  Subtle at first.  The madness and fatigue crept upon me.

I was still feeling bruised after Friday’s lesson and avalanche of criticism (even if the tutorial suggested iit was a once off and things were going rather well).  Bror is a rather charming man.  If I am honest, my ‘bad’ lesson probably taught me more than my good lessons.

Events with quiet recollection can offer retrospective triumph.

In haste everything always resembles tragedy, moments evolve later defining you.

Week 3 was a week when the light never went out especially Wednesday-I tried to get a head start on the mountainm of work I had to prepare for my lesson and assignment.  I heard every tick of the clock those nights.  I scribbled a lesson plan and began scanning secondary literature for my next assignment.

I watched others like John and Imelda and listened to them talk of ‘all nighters’ when I could barely keep my eyes open.  I needed sleep.  The warmth of my duvet.

No amount of tea, coffee or red bull could prop my eyes open.

As usual I stayed back Wednesday evening flicking through the vastly meagre selection offered by the Academy.  As was often the case everyone left before me but one of my colleagues loitered for a while and we enjoyed a wonderful venture in the conversation of procrastination and oon occasion swapping sources for our assignment, before she left me to my own devices.  I pottered around and accumulated materials before packing it in and making my way to the train station (oh faithful rocky commute how you cradle me on the wings of sleep!).  Having ingested copious amounts of tea, a hasty dinner and stressed sufficiently over the assinment I decided to surrender for another night and give in to sleep.

The tutor gave me a few tips for my next lesson and because of her input it went splendidly.  I learned from the mistakes of past lessons anticipating problems.

It was a good lesson.  I got my satisfactory grade and I believe the students learned something as well (always a bonus).

I complain a little, as I often do, joking that if I passedd assignment number 3 on first submission it would leave me feeling perturbed so much so I would have to resubmit it regardless…

I got my assignment number 3 back to learn I passed on first submission.

I had stood on the precipice of madness and I had fallen (fortunately) backwards into sanity.

As was fast becoming a Friday tradition, John and I decided to go to the pictures.  We met Caroline in ‘The Living Room’ for a drink before making our way to Cineworld.  We had a choice of Ted or Grabbers.  We opted for the MacFarlene flick (I certainly wasn’t opposed being a Family Guy fan).

We enjoyed Ted and the general consensus was after that we should get some food.  We bumped into our classmate Shane and some of his buddies.  They were off to MacTurcails and so we followed suit.  There was no food but there were many fine beverages.

After some chat, John and I decided it was in our best interests to find grub of some description.  In the end we settled for diabolically bad Chinese.  I ate Thai Green Curry that I believed some drunken fool regurgitated.  Looking at it I was sure that some other poor unfortunate must have puked on the plate before it was placed before me and my knife and fork.  I ate what I could.

We rejoined Shane and the lads and swapped some more stories.  Shane offered some good advice regarding nights out while we lingered in the smoking area (ie outside the pub’s door).  I made an attempt for the night-link but my efforts were fruitless.  I returned to the pub but John had since gone.  We then moved on to Doyles for more drinks, chat and dance.  It was getting into the wee hours at this stage.  I was conscious of the fact that I had an exam to invigilate the next day and decided it would be good for me to get the next nightlink.  After briefly dancing with a young Russian lady I bid my fair thee wells to the lads and dashed for the nightlink.  I made it in good time.

Thankfully, the exam invigilation the next day was not overly strenuous (there were only two students in the venue) and I was able to siit and read some Graham Greene.  I had a lazy evening and for the most part took the rest of the weekend off-catching up on my TV.  I felt I was right to do so.  I had just survived week 3 of CELTA next week brought the final hurdle.

CELTA: Week II

CELTA ii

After a not so lazy weekend I headed for Dublin early Monday morning.  Once again I was riding shotgun.  It was our second but final week teaching the Upper-intermediate class.  We had two assignments due this week.  Oddly enough assignment 2 was due first.  This week I was scheduled for two hours of Teaching Practice (TP).

The first hour of TP went reasonably well-I had to revise comparatives and superlatives with the class before moving on to a catastrophic reading exercise. 

I had completely relied on the teacher’s handbook and was unprepared for the students picking out more examples from the text than those listed.  Never underestimate your bright sparks.

They did enjoy the little kinaesthetic activity at the start.  Despite initial confusion over my pronunciation of ‘the’ it was good to get a third lesson done.  I had 3 hours of TP under my belt at this stage.

During the first week of CELTA I stayed with my younger sister and walked the 40 min. walk to class every day.  Alternatively there was a 10 min. bus ride.  However, after only a week tensions were running high and tempers were on the cusp of boiling over.  I decided to relocate to a town nearby where my other sister (my older sister) resided-one can always rely on family.

Assignment 2 was a delight and by delight I mean imaginative torture.  Something conjured in the deepest, darkest pits of hell. 

‘Can you pass the salt please?’

Where is the stress in that sentence?

Is it a request?

What the unholy hell had I signed up for?

My assignment was promptly returned to me.  

I got to work on the phonetics and resubmitted it keen to get cracking on my next lesson.  I passed on resubmission.

So, on Tuesday I went to class and then I walked to my younger sister’s flat and gathered my belongings stuffing them into a wheelie bag.  She dropped me at Pearse station and I made my way to Maynooth.  

I was pretty tired at this stage.  I made some tea and after a brief chat with my older sister and her boyfriend I hit the hay.

I set my alarm for 06:50.

I soon learned that there were three trains that would get me into Dublin on time for my course.  There was the early but comfortable 07:30 and then there was the adequate 07:45 but lastly there was the 07:55 which was something of a touch’n’ go train that got me into the Academy at about 09:00 on the button (with an excessive amount of panting and sweating).

Normally I dashed for the 07:45.

It takes about ten minutes walking briskly from Connolly Station to Upper O’Connell street.

I enjoy travelling by train.  There is something in the gentle rhythmic motion of the carriage as it propels you forward to your destination, watching the world from a box as it blurs into a mess of pigments.  It’s great.  For the last three weeks of CELTA I got to enjoy that train commute twice a day.  On the mornings and evenings where I got a little desk to lean on (I was often still scribbling lesson plans and other bits in the morning) I was happy or well within the walls of satisfaction.  Commuters are a grumpy bunch; sitting sourly with their kindles.  I like to commute (when I have a seat).

On Wednesday at the Academy, we were asked to swap observation classes to get an idea of what the students were like in the classes we would be moving into.  From week three onwards our little group would be working with the pre-intermediate class.

 Things appeared to be done a little differently with the pre-int class.  We observed two of our peers-Imelda and Marcus work their magic.  It was an education.

Strangely enough our Assignment 1 was due Friday (the same day as my hour TP).  I had had a chat with a Spanish student and recorded a snippet of conversation on my phone.  I tried to do a little bit of both my assignment and lesson plan on Wednesday.

On Thursday there was more of the same.  I was feeling a little bit nervous about my Friday lesson given that my previous hour long TP had been less than satisfactory (to me).  I had a chat with one of the tutors and he reassured me that all would be well.  I went back to the house thinking long and hard about the class.  That evening I spent most of my time trying to finish off the assignment, reading through secondary texts and listening to the conversation extracts.  Afterwards, I did a quick revision of my lesson plan and decided to throw in the towel and go meet slumber sometime around 00:30.

Thankfully it was Friday but I was no where close to being happy with either my assignment or lesson plan.  I was up second.  So, I had some more time to grind my eyes off the erratic smears that was my lesson plan while my peer delivered his last lesson with the Upper intermediates.  We had a brief break as we always have and then I took my place above the classroom.

What I had planned was a reading exercise.  I had hoped to practise skills of gist reading and reading for specific detail but the lesson soon descended into a vocabulary exercise.  I had made what I learned was my first major mistake-not teaching essential lexis.  I struggled on through the lesson and soon the hour was up and we had not touched the grammar aspect of the lesson which incidentally was supposed to be the main focus of said lesson.

Needless to say I was worried.  I hoped that I might dodge the bullet but I was conscious of this serious error on my part.

My worries were confirmed.  I was roughed up; the tutor beating some sense into.  Never again would I not follow the plan through.

‘Teach the student not the plan!’ I pleaded but it was no use.

‘When you write your lesson aims you sign a contract!’  The tutor interjected.

And that was that.

I had just had a sub-standard lesson.

I was feeling a little tender after the TP feedback but did my best to take it on the chin.  It did get to me.

That afternoon we had a meeting with our tutor’s to review our progress.  The tutor insisted I was a little hard on myself.  

‘I am going to give you an ‘S’ but I will also write a note on points I feel you have to improve upon.’

Yes, nice one.  Was it safe to assume that an S+note=N?  Hopefully not…

Myself and two of my colleagues, Shane and John, decided to venture to the cinema.  We debated the ideal location and what movie we ought to see.  In the end, John insisted upon ‘The amazing Spiderman’ and we complied.  Off we ventured to Cineworld where we were kindly extorted and robbed (with a smile) of our hard earned cash to see a movie that had already started and one that was offered only in 3D.  We begrudgingly purchased our 3D glasses and ventured into the dark screen room.

The film was disappointing.

Too much like Twilight and too soon after Tobey Maguire.

Afterwards, we moved next door to the Woolshed and enjoyed a relaxed chat and some beverages.  Shane left us for home but John and I continued on chatting discussing writing and other hobbies.

I returned to Maynooth boarding the last train.  It was a bank holiday weekend and I thought about heading home to my folks.  A change, they say, is as good as a rest.