We're off

Well we're about ready to go back to Italy -- Siena in fact. We leave 11 October and after a short stopover in London to visit a couple of friends we're off to Siena until the end of the year. Then it's back home to visit family for a couple of weeks and back to Siena for who knows how long or what we will be doing but whatever it is it will be in Italy. Stay tuned. Details to follow.

School in London - Assessment

October 6, 2005.

So, is International House in London worth the time and money for the student looking to get a CELTA certificate?

The short answer is yes.

IH London certainly has a large network of affiliated schools in more than 100 countries to help you find work -- the qualification there is you must not be terribly picky about where you go or for how long. Getting a CELTA certificate from a school with the reputation of IH in London can certainly stand you in good stead over the years, particularly if you want to move up in that particular world of teaching specialization. Or so it seems to one as new to all this as I am -- and if you put stock in general hearsay at any rate.

Remember I know so very little about the subculture of teaching English overseas (or anywhere else for that matter). Still, having spent a month doing this very intense "thing" I must have some insight somewhere (give me a minute and I'll start looking for it right away). In fact any insight I have I gleaned from this experience actually comes from those other 14 people who shared those four weeks with me; 14 of the most interesting and truly special people -- each very different and each with their own unique flavor of what the course meant to them. But what I learned from them is worth every single penny (or pence) I spent in those four weeks. You can't buy that kind of experience.

The longer answer is that while IH in London has a great strength in its people the staff and ultimately the students -- indeed the student teaching practice groups are everything or at least mine was to me -- the school needs updating. While the library is more than adequate the hours need extending. Photocopying facilities are severely limited as well.And these are two key components for the student teacher. In fact the facilities overall are a bit worn and in some cases need serious attention. Rooms are often poorly laid out (white boards mounted on the short wall not on the long side for example) and nearly all used tiny desks rather than tables (resembling more a middle school in the states than a training school for adults). The school is also somewhat behind the technology curve: no WiFi hotspots and although they have quite a few computers in the media access lab they use EXTREMELY slow internet servers. And no DVD players or CD players. In fact they could use better A/V facilities throughout.

The school is preparing to make a move from Mayfair to the Holborn area, a move which should take place within the next year or so, and which, we were told, would effectively resolve some of the problems we encountered.

Ultimately, you cannot go wrong being in London.

Before you do anything about going anywhere, just ask yourself two questions: what is it you hope to get out of learning to teach English abroad and what are your long term goals? Then start your research with those answers uppermost in your mind. When you've done that then take the plunge, put your money down and get ready to go to work for four highly satisfying and very stressful weeks. Because you're going to have to find all this out for yourself.

School in London - Accommodations

Notes about my  accommodation: 

First let me say that my hostess Mrs. Balali and her daughter Hoda were very pleasant and extremely helpful, emphasizing that we should just make ourselves at home during our stay. 

Food: As to specifics, however, there are some holes here: my arrangement called for 4 dinners a week as well as breakfast but in fact breakfast is little more than dry cereal and toast made at our discretion (that’s OK) but coffee and tea are available only if we make it ourselves apparently. Dinner so far (1) has been unimpressive: no vegetables or greens or fruit (also no fruit in the morning) only rice, potatoes and meat(balls); dish of ice cream for dessert. I have taken to getting fruit where I can during the day or on my way into central London. We’ll see what future dinners bring – I can see though that eating out will be more frequent than I had originally planned.

Week 1:

Meal no. 2 was a bit better: roasted potatoes, baked chicken and sautéed broccoli but with a little cup of store-bought choc mousse for dessert. Water only is offered with dinner.

Meal 3 I missed because I ran late at school but when I got back they were just finishing and it appeared to be pasta with a tomato sauce and store-bought loaf of sliced bread.

Meal 4 consisted of a Persian rice dish (onion and broccoli I think), which was good and baked salmon with a yogurt sauce, which was also very nice, and potatoes.

Week 2:

Monday’s meal was really quite mediocre, picture meat loaf cut into slabs like bacon and then broiled (I think) in some kind of greasy gravy served with a HEAPING bowl of “chips” (a huge bag of French fires it would seem), although there was some iceberg lettuce cut up on the side as well.

Tuesday I skipped ostensibly because I planned on working late in the city which was true although I also stopped at a nearby restaurant on my home for couscous and shish kebab . Anyway by the time I got home the group was still eating dinner so I stopped in and said hi. Soodabeh was not feeling well – she looked tired – and the evening meal consisted of the UK’s version of KFC with each diner eating out of their own box of “chips”. In any case, it looked quite unappealing and certainly not very healthy. 

Wednesday I ate a large lunch and got back late in any event.

Thursday was pretty good by comparison with the other meals. Pork loin broiled with soy sauce, small round potatoes sautéed and fresh green beans. 

Week 3:

Monday – good meal this evening: rice and sautéed chicken (flavor slightly reminiscent of 5-spice powder)

Tuesday - boiled potatoes out of a can I think and meatballs, both in roughly equal proportions sharing my plate and all swimming in a fairly tasteless yellow-orange sauce..

Wednesday – had to eat out again, not so much because I worked late but for the more obvious reasons of I can only take so much of the food in the house.

Thursday – chili con carne with rice. OK. Good conversation with Soodbaeh’s son Eissa, who is half-Raqi (Shia) and half-Iranian. 

Week 4:

Monday – roast chicken with potatoes and broccoli

Tuesday – pasta with a meat sauce and a salad

Wednesday – eating out with Joerig from Switzerland

Thursday – Richard and I ate out at a wonderful Indian restaurant in West Hampstead.

Friday – I ate my final meal at Shish in Willesden Green.

The house is located an easy 10-minute walk from the Tube station (18 minutes into Central London) and in a quiet residential neighborhood (as promised). Just a 2-minute walk away is a large and very nice green area, park really, and is a great place for strolling. The actual room itself is unimpressive, particularly since this is the top tier of accommodations available through the school: the bathroom is OK although rather narrow and the fan runs on a timer (annoying) while the water pressure in the shower is minimal to say the least but certainly nothing to complain about. Furniture is spartan – the desk chair collapsed the second day and broke apart; it was actually already in the processing of collapsing when I moved in and Mrs. Balali knew about this and promised to replace it but it broke first late one evening and I got a replacement from her son, a hard folding chair (small detail but may prove important).

At the end of four weeks the room had been cleaned only once and linen changed only once. 

School in London - Week 4

September 25, 2005.

So it’s over. Friday was our very last day of the course but in fact we were all effectively finished Thursday when the last of our teaching practices were over and we quickly became aware that whatever our final “grade” might be we had all passed the course. The frightening thing now is that we are all certified to teach the English language to people who have absolutely no clue as to what we might or might not be capable of doing! Yet the reality is that we are ready to do just that.

Our last teaching session on Friday, was unobserved and we could do whatever we wanted – no lesson plan, no preparation (well OK there was some preparation) – just have a good time. That we did. 

Our final input session was on professional development (by Annie) and “Fun and Games” by Ben. Just before we broke for lunch we all gave them both a Thank You card and each a bottle of champagne. They have made an enormous difference in our lives, probably in ways we don’t understand just yet and may not realize for years to come. They may feel that we made some progress as teacher trainers, good, and hope for the best as we plunge into the world of English teaching abroad – but the reality is that our lives, each of the 15 lives in this class, have been altered irrevocably.

It’s a bit after 4 in the afternoon and some of us are sitting around having drinks and chatting for what will undoubtedly be the last time we are together. Every day for the past four weeks we have all walked the same paths, climbed the same stairs, went to the same bathrooms (OK boys to the boys and girls to the girls) and know a great deal about each other and yet know each very little. Odd but true. The powerful nature of this situation has naturally produced s feeling of loss – I should be in the library photocopying, I should be writing a lesson plan, I should be DOING SOMETHING in this course. But the reality is that the course is over. It is finished. It is done. We have passed. 

People are leaving, Joerig is gone, Christina is saying good bye, Sithara is leaving, Jackie too, so many of us who have become maybe not friends but supporters of each other. The words are coming fast now but the simple fact is we must go our own separate ways; we each have a life to live and a future to get on with.

The week began on a note of high anxiety. Assignments were due, final lesson plans had to be prepared and of course the nearer each of us got to our last teaching practice the more nervous we became. For our particular group we had the distinction of having the senior assessor from Cambridge observing us on Wednesday (when Sophie and I finished) of course there was a bit of interest in that slight twist in things.

But in the end we all 15 finished and everyone passed (except the one fellow who was there just for the training and not for the certificate). Well OK the pass is not official – those will be mailed out Monday and the actual certificates arrive in about two months’ time.

For me it was a relief to have finished and I suppose for everyone else as well. 

The rain had stopped and the sun came out while we were all saying our goodbyes in the bar, so that was nice. I put away my umbrella and walked to the tube station to head back to Willesden Green. I had packed my big bag the night before and now just needed to get it to Paddington station and leave if in the “left luggage” room there. My flight isn’t until late Saturday evening so Saturday I will be meeting Trevor. He’s one of the students from the other CELTA group (there were two groups of 15 each taking the course) and he and I have often met in the mornings at the nearby Starbucks for coffee. Anyway although he’s from Northern Ireland he’s lived in London for I think he said 26 years, and worked for some years as a accountant. Anyway when he found out I had time on my hands he suggested we meet downtown and he’d give me a tour before heading out to Heathrow. And since my tube line is closed for the weekend I wanted to get my bag out of the house and on it’s way, sort of, and since I can get an express train to Heathrow (and in particular Terminal 4) I decided to leave my bag at the train station and will pick it up on my way out of town. Sounds complicated and it probably is.

Saturday morning. I got up about 6;40 am and find I just can’t shake this weird dream I had had last night. I mean it was so vivid and so real. I had come to London to go to school and there were these 14 other people in the big room and we were all sitting in these really tiny desks; and these were people from all over the world and we didn’t know each. And the dream just stranger and stranger. . . .

School in London - Week 3

September 18, 2005.

Relaxed today – well sort of. There’s a lot of work coming up in the next week and a half, though and we can’t afford to start feeling smug about any of this. And in fact some of us do take this very seriously – in fact our group met this afternoon for the second Sunday in a row now. We spent a little over an hour at the Starbucks across from Green Park station, going over the next couple of days worth of lesson plans – what we can do at this stage though is severely limited by our lack of knowledge of the students – as well as talking about the third written assignment, which is due on Friday.

Monday. A bit of a hectic day today. One of the tutors was out sick and Annie had to fill in for the second hour of input (lectures of a sort) and we spent much of the morning meeting in our TP groups talking about this week. Later we were informed that although we had timetabled our class plans in each group through Thursday, there was some concern among the tutors that some of us had not taught a wide enough variety of lesson types (speaking, reading, grammar, etc.) so we have to put our Thursday plan on hold until we get clarification on who needs to do what. I am scheduled to teach on Thursday and have not done any reading lessons as of yet so I suspect I am one who may have to readjust. We’ll see.

This  problem highlights one a couple of the occasionally confusing elements of the course here. One is that there is no long-term plan available to the student, a plan that would provide you with what you needed to do and when so you could plan accordingly. What we wind up doing is planning maybe 48 hours in advance of the lesson, which of course reduces the amount of creative input for that particular lesson. And closely tied to that is the fact that we have to teach every type of lesson, something which would not be an issue if we had a set schedule. In fact for the first full week of teaching we had a set schedule provided for us. While we all appreciate the need to teach on our own and to develop the abilities to do so, one wonders do we need to develop the skill to work with only 48 hours notice, as it were?

Something else we have to be a bit concerned about is the student turnover. We first began to notice this is our previous class group (mid-intermediate level students) when every day we were getting a significant shift in the number of students, and in students leaving the class joining the class, etc.  Today we met our new class of elementary (2nd level) students. Last week we had started observing them while they were with the previous group of teacher trainees and right away noticed the few number of students attending although a much higher number had apparently enrolled for the course. Today we had 11 students enrolled – way too much for this small classroom – but only 4 showed up and of that four 2 were new. One, a man from Chile, said at the end of the class that it was too difficult for him and he wasn’t going to come back. So it will be interesting to see what the class is like today

Anyway, the upshot is that one can hardly plan with any certainty on the number of students (a bit critical in construction Lps which are dependent on groupwork or pairwork) but even more importantly one cannot count on any constancy or consistency in what any given group of students may or may not know at that time. It is very frustrating. We heard through the student grapevine late in the day that one of the other trainees in another group in our class was actually shouting at his students to get them to understand! If true this does not bode well, certainly for him, but for many others as well and points to a whole new set of problems facing us in the next week or so.

I keep saying “the week or so” because by a week from Wednesday all my teaching will be done and my written assignments handed in. I like the sound of that, frankly.  

So after class  the five of us in our group talked for a bit about the students and the challenges were are now faced with. We then moved down to the bar in the basement of the school and talked about the LPs for Tuesday and Wednesday. 

Long days ahead yet.

Tuesday. I taught my 5th session today. It went OK and I passed but still I have some weak points to work on: my “teacher talk” is coming down and continues to do so, also  my writing, particularly on the board has shown significant improvement, but I need to work on maker my instructions for various tasks clearer and to be more attentive for errors to make the necessary corrections in class.

Ate by myself at home. Youceff is gone of course, he returned to Algeria last weekend, Sylvia the Italian lawyer has to go home on a family emergency and will probably not be back until this weekend. Jackie is hit-and-miss for dinner so it was just me. Worked until about 10;30 or so.

Wednesday. Another very busy day, which may have accounted for why I did not sleep very well; woke up about 2;30 or so and could not get back to sleep so got out of bed and starting in on my lesson plan at about 4 am. Although I did not teach there was still plenty to do: get ready for my next teaching practice which will be tomorrow. I’m going to rely on the overhead projector for much of my board work – it is really quite easy to make corrections on the board but using the OHP – so I need to prep all those materials and of course get my handouts ready and I still need to finalize the structure, the design if you will, of my LP. 

I observed my last experienced teacher for the course (we had to do three and write up our notes) and afterwards met with another of our tutors, Ben, to get his feedback from my LP ideas. I then scooted off to meet the group in the bar in the school basement to talk about the next written assignment (no. 3). Sophie was kind enough to have bought drinks for everyone and I found an Old Speckled Hen waiting for me when I got there,

After our regular group meeting broke up about 4:45 or so I spent some time in the library and then I went to Kinko’s to get my transparencies printed out. (I burn my documents for class onto a CD and then take the disc to Kinko’s which is really quite close to the school, about a 5 or 6-minute walk, and use their work station to print out what I need. The school’s print center is antiquated and the computers are buggy.) I returned to the school and to the library for a bit looking for a couple of things for our next assignment and I then went to Starbucks to check email. The place was packed so I decided to just head back to Willesden Green. 

Since I had no intention of eating at home that evening I stopped at Shish and read the Guardian while I sipped a glass of trebbiano d’abruzzo and ate a nice relaxing meal.  My landlady had sent me a text message early in the day asking if I was going to be there for dinner, probably hoping I would say no so she wouldn’t have to cook for just one, and I said no sorry. I ate at Shish in Willesden Green. There is a Turkish restaurant just down the street which I may try later this week. 

Thursday. I taught my 6th session today. I woke up early – probably about 2:30 although I didn’t get up and start working until a bit after 4 am. Anyway, I worked on finalizing my lesson plan for the day and headed into the city. It was rainy pretty much all day – really the first “bad” weather we’ve had since I arrived here. The day went very well and I had a good day of teaching. This was the last of our 40-minute classes. Beginning Friday (and for me Monday) we will start teaching for 60 minutes each. I did a little work in library after our regular late afternoon group meeting and then headed for home. I ate with the family this evening – or rather they ate with me since they usually do not eat with the students. Anyway, I had a very nice conversation with Soodabeh’s son Eissa, who is half-Iranian and half-Iraqi but was born in the UK. (Soodabeh is my landlady.) He is quite sharp, very intelligent and clearly well read, particularly about affairs in the middle east but also in his own country as well. Not a day goes by when I don’t learn something new and different about the world from someone who has seen parts of it I have never been to – and not as a tourist but as someone who is plugged into those other parts in some profound ways. For example, Eissa is Shiite Iraqi (on his father’s side) and he expressed grave concern over the future of Iraq as things presently stand. So we had a nice dinner of rice and chile con carne and great conversation.

Friday. Fall is most definitely in the air. Coolish nights now and chilly mornings but sunny skies and felt a bit like Vermont. With the onset of cooler weather I slept very well last night – but also because I had just finished teaching practice session and I am always very relaxed after that. I suppose the tension and suspense (am I going to pass, that sort of thing) before class just evaporated leaving me a bit drained. Anyway, I felt great in the morning and had a good day at school.

Our lectures are a bit less now in the morning session as more time is given to allowing us to finish our various assignments and getting our “portfolios” in order. This is a large binder which each of us was given when we first began class. Inside are all our records, lessons, tutor observations about our teaching sessions, everything, and serve as the basis upon which we are given a PASS or a FAIL. 

So our tutors wanted to make sure everyone has theirs in order because things will be happening pretty quickly next week. The senior assessor from Cambridge University will come and spend the day going over all of our portfolios and observing the “observers” (our tutors) during our teaching practice sessions. By the end of Wednesday (my last teaching day) I should be pretty much finished.  That’s my hope, although I’m also resigned to having to resubmit a lesson. Anyway, it won’t be long now.

I just observed two members of my group today. We have been given the option of picking one afternoon when we are not teaching to just take off – there are no more observations of experienced teachers so they are giving us a bit of a holiday. I – like most others – thought NOT to take today off and spend it watching how a 60-minute session goes. Also I have to teach Monday AND Wednesday so it works much better for me to take Tuesday afternoon off to finalize my lesson for Wednesday. Anyway, after class our group plus members of a couple of the other groups got together in the bar in the basement of the school and had a couple of beers and talked about of lots of things other than school. This is truly an amazing group. For example, I spoke at some length with Estelle who is from the London area and after school is planning on going to Mexico to teach but she wants to eventually move to America – her boyfriend lives in San Fransisco – and settle there. She was quite eloquent in explaining to me why she likes America – much of it has to do with our political system and how it seems there is still so much more room for the individual to have a say in what does and does not happen than perhaps she has experienced in her own country. 

I eventually said good-by to the group and headed to Miso’s, the noodle bar near Piccadilly Circus for dinner, and then took the tube home.

So far so good.

Saturday. Much of today I will spend putting together the items for my Monday lesson – it all about restaurants and reading menus so it should be fun. I just need to find some photos (online I hope and from magazines and newspapers) as well as some objects themselves. 

Richard and his wife asked me back for dinner this evening – they had me over for dinner last Saturday -- and I can’t resist. The company is superlative, the conversation always enlightening, the food is delicious and the wine wonderful. It will be a nice way for me to relax and get out of my “dorm room” for a couple of hours or so. More importantly they are really very nice people and a pleasure to be with.