Week 3 is over and thank goodness for that! This has been the busiest and craziest week so far. There has been so much to do, so many things to think about that it can only be summed up by what I did last night:
I turned on the overhead light in my room. I got all ready for bed, got into bed and turned on the lamp. I sat there wondering why the overhead light was still on. Yep, I thought by turning "off" the lamp I was turning off the overhead light.
Or something that happened earlier today:
I got a lift this morning to church and the sweet lady texted me later and said: "I found a 5 note on the floor. Is it yours?" How did I respond? "I don't think so. Does it have my name on it?" She meant a 5 pound note! Wow, I am just losing it each day.
So, that is a great summary of the week.
Monday was a bit--a lot--hectic. We switched locations with the other CELTA group, so we now meet at the auxiliary location. It is about a 8 minutes walk from the school, so it isn't too bad. But we kept having to go back and forth on Monday since we had tutorials. Tutorials are sit-down individual interviews with the tutor that has been working with you that week. In my case for my TP group, that is Sophie. It was nice. We each had to respond to a series of prompts regarding our teaching, classroom management, etc., rating whether we were below, to, or above standard. Sophie then responded to the prompts of what she thought. It was a nice moment to have alone with Sophie and talk about my feelings and what I could do to improve in the latter half of the course. Very productive, though it caused me to get a little over my head on Tuesday for TP5.
Tuesdays must be my unlucky teaching day, or just the odd TP lessons, because TP5 did not go well. I passed it and all, but it wasn't that successful and I didn't feel good about it at all. I was so tired, I was in my head so much about how it could go, I was thinking about my tutorial and then BAM. It all just was a bit too much all at once. Suffice it to say there were a few tears after my lesson. Not sobbing or anything like that, but a few tears. I ended up just chilling on Tuesday night and taking a moment to get out of the funk.
It must have worked because my TP6 on Thursday went beautifully! I really focused on the students and getting them to be engaged in the learning. I stepped out of my own head and just told myself, "Hey, I love this. Let's crank it." Did I have hiccups? Over course? Did I ask any ICQs? Not really, and the one I did ask was rubbish. Let's face it, I'm terrible at ICQs. But the lesson felt so right on so many levels and I can only hope that it will continue like that for TP7 and TP8.
(And because of the changes for the last week of the course, I teach Monday for 45 minutes and Wednesday for 60 minutes.)
Friday was a blast. I think all of the trainees are a bit fried, so things are just becoming funnier all of the time! We played a grammar review game for one of the input sessions with Sophie and I totally made a fool of myself in the best way possible. The game was that one person from each team would go to the board and Sophie would as for an example of a specific grammatical structure, like a compound noun or present perfect simple. The rest of the team could call out answers.
Well, our team was doing well (we won in the end despite my blunder) and it was Matthew's turn at the board. Sophie asks for an example of a regular verb and I start yelling, "Bird!! Matthew, BIRD!! BIRD!!!" I have no idea what I was thinking because obviously I heard regular noun and not regular verb. Matthew comes back to the table and asks, "Who was yelling bird?" Colm, another one of the trainees, looks at me and just said, "Yeah, why were you yelling bird?" So I just dissolve into a massive fit of laughter and the rest of the day we joked about "birding".
Yep, the life of the CELTA trainee.
It is hard to believe that it is the last week already. Ione, my Spanish flatmate, left at half 2 in the morning yesterday to head home to Spain and I am waiting on getting a new flatmate from Germany for the week. I am still fried, but looking forward to my lessons. Since I teach Wednesday at 2pm, I will be done with almost all of my CELTA responsibilities on Wednesday at 3pm GMT. Think about me then, people. I will be dancing.
I turned on the overhead light in my room. I got all ready for bed, got into bed and turned on the lamp. I sat there wondering why the overhead light was still on. Yep, I thought by turning "off" the lamp I was turning off the overhead light.
Or something that happened earlier today:
I got a lift this morning to church and the sweet lady texted me later and said: "I found a 5 note on the floor. Is it yours?" How did I respond? "I don't think so. Does it have my name on it?" She meant a 5 pound note! Wow, I am just losing it each day.
So, that is a great summary of the week.
Monday was a bit--a lot--hectic. We switched locations with the other CELTA group, so we now meet at the auxiliary location. It is about a 8 minutes walk from the school, so it isn't too bad. But we kept having to go back and forth on Monday since we had tutorials. Tutorials are sit-down individual interviews with the tutor that has been working with you that week. In my case for my TP group, that is Sophie. It was nice. We each had to respond to a series of prompts regarding our teaching, classroom management, etc., rating whether we were below, to, or above standard. Sophie then responded to the prompts of what she thought. It was a nice moment to have alone with Sophie and talk about my feelings and what I could do to improve in the latter half of the course. Very productive, though it caused me to get a little over my head on Tuesday for TP5.
Tuesdays must be my unlucky teaching day, or just the odd TP lessons, because TP5 did not go well. I passed it and all, but it wasn't that successful and I didn't feel good about it at all. I was so tired, I was in my head so much about how it could go, I was thinking about my tutorial and then BAM. It all just was a bit too much all at once. Suffice it to say there were a few tears after my lesson. Not sobbing or anything like that, but a few tears. I ended up just chilling on Tuesday night and taking a moment to get out of the funk.
It must have worked because my TP6 on Thursday went beautifully! I really focused on the students and getting them to be engaged in the learning. I stepped out of my own head and just told myself, "Hey, I love this. Let's crank it." Did I have hiccups? Over course? Did I ask any ICQs? Not really, and the one I did ask was rubbish. Let's face it, I'm terrible at ICQs. But the lesson felt so right on so many levels and I can only hope that it will continue like that for TP7 and TP8.
(And because of the changes for the last week of the course, I teach Monday for 45 minutes and Wednesday for 60 minutes.)
Friday was a blast. I think all of the trainees are a bit fried, so things are just becoming funnier all of the time! We played a grammar review game for one of the input sessions with Sophie and I totally made a fool of myself in the best way possible. The game was that one person from each team would go to the board and Sophie would as for an example of a specific grammatical structure, like a compound noun or present perfect simple. The rest of the team could call out answers.
Well, our team was doing well (we won in the end despite my blunder) and it was Matthew's turn at the board. Sophie asks for an example of a regular verb and I start yelling, "Bird!! Matthew, BIRD!! BIRD!!!" I have no idea what I was thinking because obviously I heard regular noun and not regular verb. Matthew comes back to the table and asks, "Who was yelling bird?" Colm, another one of the trainees, looks at me and just said, "Yeah, why were you yelling bird?" So I just dissolve into a massive fit of laughter and the rest of the day we joked about "birding".
Yep, the life of the CELTA trainee.
It is hard to believe that it is the last week already. Ione, my Spanish flatmate, left at half 2 in the morning yesterday to head home to Spain and I am waiting on getting a new flatmate from Germany for the week. I am still fried, but looking forward to my lessons. Since I teach Wednesday at 2pm, I will be done with almost all of my CELTA responsibilities on Wednesday at 3pm GMT. Think about me then, people. I will be dancing.
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