CELTA: Bring on Week 2!

Week one is finished and week two is upon me. I am over a quarter of a way through my class. Week one was a little bit of a roller-coaster, but I got through it. My confidence is still high, and I am still sure of my success. I spent several hours putting together tomorrow’s lesson, but it looks damn good to me! Hopefully I can slow down enough that I will not be murdered next week when I become a beginner teacher!

Let’s see, we left on Wednesday right? I obviously stayed up far too late writing to you, and felt it in the morning. The morning session had my head spinning and pounding. Luckily, these things become clearer as we put them into use! The session was on using a certain format for teaching, and the entire class seemed to be staring at Aly as though he has grown extra heads, or was speaking Twi! More than one person agreed that it made their head hurt! After our morning break (where I went and got a coffee), we worked on stresses. Stresses stress me out! In normal conversation I cannot hear where we stress each individual word, nor what we stress in a sentence. Somehow, before I knew it, I was crying from the frustration of it all! I am sure it was only because I was tired and now frustrated, but there I was, in the middle of class, with tears on my cheeks, a croak in my voice and sniffles in my nose. LAME. Aly asked me when we broke for lunch if I was going to be okay, and that only made me cry again, but I promised him I would be. My Wednesday feedback was good. Aly told me that if I continued to talk at my usual fast pace “the beginner students would murder me” with their lack of understanding. When I mentioned it later he said he didn’t use those words, but I know he did because they stuck with me far more than “that is too fast for these students”. One of my classmates is from Romania, and the way he said ‘murder’ when I told him this also made me giggle. It sounded so Dracula like; it was awesome! I have spent the last couple of day picking random words out of conversation with Erin and Sean and stressing them loudly. I am still working on it, and I am only just starting on sentence stress, but I am working on it! No more tears for stress! Haha, pun intended!

Friday was a quiet day for the class. We learned … umm… stuff! until lunch time, and then had feedback and information about TP in the afternoon. We are switching tutors this week, so I will now be talking about what Brad says, not Aly. Of course, just to keep you on your toes, when I switch to the beginner class next week, I will have Aly again too! Class was dismissed just after 3 but I stayed until 4 working on my current TP lesson. It was nice to be home by 5! I went swimming on Friday night. I propped myself up on a kick board and just kicked for 45 minutes. My foot felt dead by the end of the swim but was able to walk me the three blocks home. It was very stiff on Saturday morning though! Erin, Sean and I watched a movie on Friday night; it was nice to be able to take a night off.

Saturday was a beautiful day in the lower mainland. I decided that I should go for a walk to a) enjoy the weather and b) exercise my ankle a little. Erin suggested that since her and Sean had to go downtown to buy Sean shoes that I might like to walk to Sea-Wall. I thought that sounded far lovelier than just walking around Coquitlam. I was able to finish this week’s written assignment and start on my TP lesson before we went downtown. I walked from Kitsalano to Science World over the course of the next couple hours. I don’t know how far it is, probably 7-8 mms. By the time I met Erin and Sean again, my foot was tired and my tummy was empty. We went out for stir-fry at the Mongolian Grill where I had hair in my soup and cardboard in my free-because-you-had-hair-in-your-soup cheesecake! But the experience was one I enjoyed. I also decided to try my hand at chop-sticks and did a decent job of it! I was so proud!

Today, I worked on my lesson for a bit (but I did a lot last night once we finally got home!) and then went downtown (by myself!) to meet Synthia for lunch. I got minor-ly lost once I was out of the Granville sky train station, but it was all good in the end! Mostly I was just really disorientated and it was my first time at that station. Syn and I had a lovely afternoon chatting and eating and walking around. It’s too bad she is moving next weekend to Victoria; I could do with an afternoon with Syn a week while I am here! I came home and have just finished my TP and my readings for tomorrow’s class. I am fully caught up and ready for week 2! Next step: to head to bed and make sure I have enough sleep so that I don’t embarrass myself in class again!

Much Love!