Becky in Halloween costume for Kids Party.
.. and Margaret..
and Elizabeth...
My course? Mmmm.. I guess I have to say right now it’s great!! But that’s because I have a four day holiday. Wednesday was Halloween and being a school, on Wednesday evening say scores of children arrived in their costumes and terrorized the school! Of course, for those of you who know me well will realize that is a total exaggeration and the kids were having a wonderful time eating and drinking fabulous concoctions of witches brew, skeleton cakes and making pumpkins and wands. The teachers dressed up for the occasion, as you can see, yes they really are our teachers!! November the 1st is All Saints Day so its like Good Friday at home and everything is closed; and schools (a chance at some sanity for us CELTA students) close on the Friday making it a 4 day weekend. Meanwhile in the real world ...
Since 10 October when I started my 4 week foray into studying again I have not only forgotten to eat but haven’t had any time for sleeping even.
School starts at 9am and goes through until 5pm with an hour for lunch. Every second morning we teach, (yes real live Italian students learning English) and that started on Day 2. Each lesson is either 40 or 60 minutes long for which we must write a lesson plan, copy or design activities and type them all. Lesson plans take about 4 – 5 hours to prepare as every detail must be included and the activities have to be photocopied for the students. On top of that workload we have an assignment each week of about 1,000 words. If our assignment isn’t up to ‘standard’ we are asked to re-submit it.. of course by that time the next assignment is almost due and we have another two lessons to prepare for. I guess you all get the gist of this by now!
And if you don’t think that is stressful enough consider this: There are 6 students on our course and another 12 on the part time course (who are at school Tuesday and Thursday only) only one of us has the internet and a printer at home as most are in similar situations to me and from outside Rome and in temporary accommodation for the duration of the course. Facilities at the school are meager to say the least. There is one computer which will take a memory stick AND a printer, a second computer has a printer but no usb port for a memory stick; these two computers are available from 8.15 until 7.30pm at night. There are a further two computers in the ‘library’ which is open 5 – 7.30 4 nights a week and Saturday mornings; all four of these pc’s have email facility BUT NO MICROSOFT!! Yep, we bring our information in on our memory stick and can’t even amend it.. only print it. And the congestion on Tuesdays and Thursdays!! .
A day in the life of Vicki goes something like this… wake about 7, check my work from the night before is on my memory stick and all my books are in bag, walk to school (that’s a good point – it’s only a 2 minute walk) dropping off the rubbish on the way (no such thing as a rubbish bin here it’s Wheelie Bins at the end of the street!!). Arrive at school at 8.15 in the hope of getting to the computer first and print out my lesson plan and copious copies of the handouts for activities. Change pc’s to let the next person print out her stuff and open emails… enjoy emails from home and reply if time permits. I am in class all day until 5 o’clock, then to use the library to find materials for next lesson and/or assignment, photocopy relevant information (you can only borrow one book at a time) .. walk home in the dark. I work on laptop until the outline of the lesson comes together, whip up a salad or boil some soup, make lunch for the next day, have a shower and back to the laptop. Around midnight I may just have finished.. although to be working at 1am is not uncommon.
Am I a looser or what??? When I am the last person in the school at night and the first person to arrive in the morning I think so!! I had to re-submit my first assignment, which was grammar, so for two days I didn’t get to bed until almost 2am!! If only someone had told be the ‘infinitive’ is the base form of a verb and a past participle is the past tense of the verb. Why do linguists think up such fancy names for basic things? I thought this course would teach grammar but it only just touches on it, the main aim of the course is to teach one HOW to teach.
The UPSIDE of this? Yes there is one.. truly I kid you not! The other 5 girls/women in the class are fantastic company and I am so busy I don’t have time to get lonely! There are two Americans, one girl from London and two Italians and ALL of them speak Italian to some degree.
