School in London - Week 2

Sunday 11 September 2005.  

Katrina has fallen off the front page of the papers here – even the tabloids, which are notorious for their graphic full page front page photos and their screaming headlines. Much of this past week’s stories have focused on the more than 100 Britons who were/are trapped in New Orleans and vicinity. And of course as a few have managed to get back home they have become the center of media attention.

This past week has been very trying for everyone, and I mean everyone. The pace has continued to quicken and each passing day seems to demand more and more of our attention for an even greater number of details, which we have to somehow sort out. If that sounds vague I do apologize so let me try and sort it all out for you.

At first I thought it was just me that was starting to regress. I had my second observed teaching session Monday and it began very well but after a 10 minutes I just slipped right away from my prepared lesson plan and it went downhill from there. I finished the lesson OK and some of the students actually got the point of lesson, but a couple of them clearly did not. The rest of the day did not sit well and the intensity of what we have to do – meetings, discussions about lesson plans, coordinating plans, photocopying, putting resources together all sound quite distant when viewed on paper but when placed within a severely constrained timeframe you feel rushed and almost as if things are just about at the edge of being out of control. The bright spot here was I did in fact PASS. Go figure.

OK, it still sounds vague. Try this.

When we began our course we were given a timetable – day-by-day – of what we had to do and when we had to do it: Mornings we would have 2 lectures at a give time and the material to be discussed, and afternoons we would have our teaching practice. That ended Wednesday. While we still know our lecture schedule for the mornings beginning on Tuesday we were given a 20 minutes in the morning to start planning on our own the timetable and lecture schedule for the remainder of the week (Thursday and Friday). So while we are in the midst of finalizing midweek’s lesson plans and finishing our first written assignment before Friday we now have to plan, coordinate and prepare for two days’ worth of teaching. Oh, and on the day when one is not teaching we are usually assigned – at this point – to observe an experienced teacher for 2 hours in the afternoon and take notes, join in whatever. 

Tuesday we had class in the morning of course and given a bit of time and some direction as to where we needed to go with our Thursday and Friday timetables – since we were now responsible for setting those up, and a pretty intimidating responsibility it is too. I along with two of my team members are teaching on Wednesday so I also had to get ready for that as well. By late in the day we had pretty much decided on who was going to teach when and what sort of lesson (grammar, vocabulary, listening skills, etc.). I will also be teaching Thursday as well. 

Wednesday. I had a good day of teaching and that was a relief after Monday. The group is working late in the day to finalize up the timetable for the last two days of this week – our tutor Annie had some concerns about Friday’s lessons so there was some adjustment there. Christina and I have a linked lesson so we spent about two hours this evening, until the library closed, setting out our outlines – actually she was giving me suggestions and directions without which I’m not sure I could have done my first grammar lesson at all. 

Thursday the day went very well – perhaps because it was an absolutely gorgeous day, clear blue sky mid-70s, or maybe because there was just that proverbial hint of Fall in the air inside Green Park, or maybe because it was the halfway mark of teaching practice for me. Whatever it was it came as a palpable relief, at least for me but I sensed in others as well. 

Thursday evening I did eat at home – I had missed the previous two evening meals -- and had a great time with our little “dinner group”: Jackie (China) and Youceff (Algeria), both studying English at Intl. House and now Sylvia, an Italian lawyer who once studied English at IH but is now here working and presently looking for an apartment (“flat”).

Anyway, we had a fairly late day again today: we need to make headway on our second written assignment which is due Monday – and then prepare our LP for Monday – it is our second day of unobserved teaching and will involve all of us; 23 minutes apiece just like the very first day which was also unobserved. We also need to timetable the rest of next week (“Week 3”).  

The group by and large has been feeling jittery about this week so the weekend can't come soon enough. Still we make the class changeover beginning next Monday when we move to an elementary level group to teach, which will be more challenging. But the prep work is beginning even as we finish this present group of students. 

Friday was a good day (pretty much) all around for our group. We made the handover in the morning and the books we will be using are clearly better organized than our previous ones so that’s a bit of good news but the language proficiency of “new” students is definitely below our previous group – but hey that was to be expected. We then had our first one-to-one sit-down with Annie to talk about where we are, how we are doing and, I suppose where might be going during the last half of the course. I need to work on my instructions and, as you might suppose, I need to reduce my “teacher talk” – since this is a course that is not content driven, like say a university lecture course, but is student-drive and the focus must be on the students talking and not the teacher. I also need to work on my handwriting which I began this afternoon. I am now practicing my penmanship regularly and have made some serious adjustments in how I write on the whiteboard (“greaseboard”) in the classroom. A very important gap I need to fill. 

After our midweek meetings with our central tutor we worked as a group on timetabling Week 3 at least through Thursday and we then began prepping for Assignment 2 which is due Monday. Sunday afternoon we will meet at the Starbucks near Green Park tube station to spend an hour or so getting ready for our Monday morning kickoff – and we also hope to make some headway on preparing for Tuesday, our first observed teaching practice with the new group. So it is shaping up to be a very busy weekend for sure.

After our Friday session I headed over to the Apple Store to check email and take a peek at the new iPod Nano – which is tres cool indeed. 1/5 the size of the original iPod it holds as many songs (1000) but with a color screen! 

I then walked down Regent Street to Piccadilly circus – at dusk it was all lit up and the masses were out in force. I headed down Haymarket street and stopped for dinner at this great noodle bar, Miso – I went there last weekend and enjoyed it immensely. Saturday I’ve been invited to join Richard and his wife for dinner at their home in West Hampstead which is just a tube stop away for me and am looking forward to that. Sunday I will head back to Shish, located right here in Willesden Green. I went there twice last weekend and once during this past week.

I got home about 8:30 pm – delays on the tube wouldn’t you know -- and chatted with out “dinner group” as they were finishing their meal, although Jackie was still out and about. After dinner Youceff asked for a copy of the photo I took of him and he brought me a little memory card he carries with him. I plugged into my computer and after I copied the photo onto his card he showed me photos of his family and winter in Algiers last year (lots of snow, pretty unusual he said) and the last festival of Ramadan when they slaughter a ram and have a big party. It was very kind of him. He has invited Sue and I to visit him and his family in Algiers and I said we would try and do just that after we get back to Italy. Since he finished his language course today and heads home tomorrow we said good-bye. 

A pretty good week. I said good-bye to a new friend from a part of the world where I always thought Americans were unwanted, I am halfway through this course, and I am learning to write for the first time since I was a child. Pretty good indeed.