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.