One day long ago, I remember trying to remember something (!), and in the process of attempting to remember that thing, whatever it was, I noticed that my thought mechanism had changed. Thought had up until that point seemed something separate from language. Thought was a liquid, formless thing which I translated in approximation into the finite mechanical medium of language, but on this day I noticed that I was different, that my thought mechanism had been changing in a fundamental way since I began to learn the words for things. My thoughts had adopted language, slowly abandoning the clarity that existed before lingual definition, separating my psychological being into components which argued with each other in words rather than working together harmoniously. The fluidity of thought that I remembered seemed to have been highly objective, as I observed and interacted with the world with a limited knowledge of the definitions that link memories together. As I learned the words we have assigned to things, I linked together my memories involving each definition, creating a database associated with every single definition I held. As I grew more experienced and the memories associated with each definition expanded, the colonies of memories and experiences linked to each definition became the thing being defined, and my thought and experience grew increasingly more subjective, seeing the world as the memories I had for each definition. Subsequently my thought had become less and less objective as I got to 'know' the world, and my thinking became a construct of words more than free-flowing ideas.
The Indian philosopher/psychologist/preacher Jiddu Krishnamurti often asked how we can know that which is new, that which we do not already know, and his conclusion was that anything that was a product of thought could not be new, since it was a product of that which we already know. When we name things in language, we create a title within our minds, a definition, under which we place experiences and memories, which link to each other through associative connection and similarity of definition. When we are young and someone points out a dog, and tells us that is 'a dog', we will refer back to that the next time we see a dog, or something that resembles a dog, and call it such. We will place that new experience under the same category as the last that resembled it. A child sees the differences between one dog and another, but will classify them as the same thing through similarity and association and place them under the same title; every 'dog' is 'a dog', and is defined by the chain of memories placed under that title of definition. Does this influence perception? Undoubtedly. A person who is bitten on their first encounter with a dog will hold that memory under the dog definition for ever, seeing every dog as a potential bite.
Can we revert back to the clarity of thought we practiced before language categorized our minds, without losing that which we have learnt? It is a difficult idea to practice, since it involves 'thinking without thinking'. It is certainly something that must be studied through the kind of mental practice we have named 'meditation'. It cannot be attained through 'conventional thought', which is a complicated associative process working through an increasingly experienced lifetime of memories and definitions, involving more and more processing as our experience of this world builds. It must surely be achieved through a clear mind; clear of the languages we have learnt to define everything by, clear of the resulting thought processes we have accustomed ourselves to over the years. We must re-learn the underlying structure of our minds by unraveling the lingual definition structure we have built; easier said than done, and not particularly easy to say.
The irony of all this post is that I am using the definitions of language to describe the psychological limitations that the definitions of language impose upon us, and advocating their deconstruction in that very same medium. I am attempting to make a creation of language which advocates its' own destruction. Can it work? Who knows.
This is 'The Twenty Third Blog Of Trig', signing off.
2011-11-18
The Twenty Second Blog Of Trig - The Barcelona Diaries (Part 9 - CELTA Week Four)
CELTA week four, everyone looked tired, everyone felt tired, and there was a strange mood among us. We were now eager to finish the course, but at the same time sad that it was coming to an end. The final lessons began on Wednesday, running through to Friday, with two teachers from my teaching group giving an hour lesson each day. Our final assignments were handed in at the beginning of the week, with much relief.
We gave the last of our forty minute lessons on Monday and Tuesday, and our input sessions that week included a lesson on teaching business English, a lesson on teaching younger students; from a lady who seemed like she might burst out in tears from nervousness; advice on finding teaching work, how to structure your CV, how to behave in interviews, what to expect from different schools in different countries, and many other bits and pieces that I felt were very useful.
One of the students in the other teaching group, who we were close with, had not been doing well in the course, and had been told in no uncertain terms that it would pretty much be a miracle if he passed. Everyone in both groups went out of their way to try and help him out, spending time with him, going through his lesson plan and tutoring him themselves. It was wonderful to see, but I did not have too much hope from what he had said the tutor told him. Amazingly, brilliantly, he passed in the end, no doubt thanks to the caring, considerate attention given to him by the other students. It was a wonderful triumph, for him and all those who helped him, and everyone on the course, who all gave him support and encouragement and stopped him from giving up in light of the situation. I think I was more happy for him passing than I was for myself!
I gave my last forty minute lesson on the Tuesday, leaving me Wednesday and Thursday to prepare my final hour lesson. On that Tuesday, while dashing through the school preparing for my lesson, I buckled on my ankle going down a flight of stairs. My foot instantly went completely numb, the numbness subsiding after a while to leave a dull yet vibrant ache. Even now, four months later, I can still feel that injury.
On that Tuesday I gave a lesson on ‘schwa’, the phonetic letter that represents the sound, ‘uh’, as in ‘Uhmericuh’ (America), ‘Thuh’ (the), ‘Canuhduh’ (Canada), and so on. That day was also the day that we were visited by the Cambridge assessor, someone who comes in from Cambridge on one day of every single CELTA course that takes place around the world, and makes sure that the course is being conducted to standard. I was lucky enough (!) to be one of the two people chosen to have our CELTA files examined, and to have the CELTA assessor sit in on one of our lessons as a spectator. This did not really bother me; I had been teaching every other day for three weeks while under close surveillance by my tutor and my peers; but it just happened that this turned out to be one of my less successful lessons (so I thought). I decided to give them a crash course on understanding the London accent, and one of the parts to my lesson involved me reading sentences in my casual, natural speech, for them to dictate and then underline the ‘schwa’ and the stressed sounds. This turned out to be quite difficult for them, and one of the slightly older students, who was quite a funny, outspoken character, lambasted me mercilessly for my accent, saying that men from London spoke like dogs, with his tongue in his cheek of course. The main mistake I made was to apologise, which was pointed out by my peers later. I should not have apologised for the way I speak, especially considering they would certainly encounter much more difficult accents in London and elsewhere. I did eventually take this line in the class, and continued the lesson, but I felt bad about how the lesson had gone at the end. The other teachers were incredibly supportive though, telling me that I handled it brilliantly, and that it was great experience for the students to be exposed to natural speech, rather than what we refer to as ‘teacher talk’, and that they were at an appropriate stage in their studies of English to be able to deal with it. I thought I might get an ‘NS’; Not to Standard; for that lesson, but my tutor actually told me he thought it was my best so far. I didn’t agree, but you can have a very slanted view of yourself when you are teaching.
On the Wednesday the first two in my group gave their last lessons. They both did well. Derek, who had the most beautiful font-like handwriting and was very skilled in one of his many hobbies of calligraphy, wrote out beautiful lesson feedback notes for everyone and gave it to them at the end of their last lessons.
That night we went out for drinks at a lovely bar hidden away in the side-streets of Barcelona. It was my favourite place I had been to, with a lovely enclosed outdoor area hidden from the streets. I drank my favourite 'San Miguel Selecta', a slightly richer, slightly stronger version of the well-known beer. Katie, who was part of the morning CELTA course, but who we had become close friends with since meeting her at her flat where she was staying with Emily, told us about some of the guys on her course. Apparently a couple of the lads were complete assholes, being really nasty to the other students in feedback sessions, and making one young girl run out in tears after telling her that her lesson was awful. The other lads and I agreed that we were glad we weren't in that class, or we might have been thrown off the course for fighting.
One beer, two beer, three beer, four...we drank, chatted, laughed the evening away. At some point in the night one of the lads had his bag stolen from under his chair. Luckily there was not too much in it. I left as I realised I was getting a little bit drunk, said goodbye to everyone and headed into the streets towards Placa Catalunya where my Metro station was. On the way I stopped at a small 'casino', deciding to try my luck with the few Euros I had on me. I walked through, ignoring the old fruit machines that lined the entrance, and spotted a roulette wheel with electronic game seats around it. 'Yeah', I thought, 'bit of roulette!' I sat down and put three or four Euro coins in and looked at the buttons. They were all in Spanish and I couldn't understand a word. I spent a moment staring a little drunkenly at it when the manager came over and offered me a drink. I asked him how much and he said they were free, so I asked for a beer. He tried to demonstrate how to use the machine, which I didn't really understand, but I cracked on anyway. I managed to get a couple of bets down, and on the first spin one of my numbers came in! 'Yeah!' I shouted, as Euro coins started filling the coin basin. I took a couple out and put them back in, made my bets, and to my complete and utter horror my number spun in again! I had drank the can of beer pretty fast and so I asked the manager for another, which he brought to me a little begrudgingly. I must have won a couple more before I decided my luck couldn't go much further, so I took my basket of coins over to the counter to change it up. I shoved a bunch of notes into my wallet and took the last couple of Euro coins back to the roulette and put them in. And waddaya know, my number comes in. The manager does not look too happy at this point, so after another couple of wins I change up again and leave, heading towards Placa Catalunya again.
When I get to Placa Catalunya the Metro is closed. I am more than a little drunk, and insanely happy from my lucky winning streak on the roulette. I decide to sit down in the square, which is very busy, and watch the world go by. One of the street pedlars approaches and offers me 'cerveza', which I gladly take him up on, buying a couple. He also offers me something to smoke, and being a little drunk, I oblige him, or maybe I oblige myself, I'm not sure. He brings me something over and I roll one up. As I am rolling some German students sit down on the seat next to me. I say hello and we chat a while, and when I've rolled I have a smoke with them. After it is finished my head is spinning, so I say my goodbyes, leave them something to smoke and head off towards McDonalds to fill my beer filled stomach with something solid. McDonalds is very busy, a queue stretching right through the restaurant, so I am waiting a while, swaying a little, but it is worth it when I finally soak up some of the beer with a large meal, and I leave feeling a little better.
After staring at Spanish bus timetables blankly for a while, I decide to walk back home; a perfect zig-zagged journey through the criss-crossed streets of Barcelona, which had taken me about 40 minutes a week or so earlier. I should have taken a taxi, especially since I had just won a load of cash, but I was still pretty wasted, and after walking for a while I stop and look around me to realise that I have no idea where I am or where I have been going. ‘Shit’. I choose a direction and decide to stop at the first bus stop I find and jump on a bus. I find a bus stop and sit down, put my bag in front of me, and put my head back for a moment. When I raise my head again, I look down and my bag is gone, and the street around me is empty and silent. My bag is gone. Gone. The bag which had my laptop in. The bag which had my phone in. The bag which I had put my wallet in. The wallet in which I had put the last of my cash that I had withdrawn earlier, along with my winnings from the roulette. Imagine the moment.
I swear. I punch the air. 'Fuck! Fuck! Fuck! Fuck's sake! Fuck!' Then the bombshell hits: my CELTA file was in my bag. The folder they had warned us to never take out of the school, the folder that contained all of my lesson plans, coursework, tutor feedback, all the evidence of my doing the course. The folder that I had carefully left in the school every single day for the last three weeks, I had forgotten to take out that day. And it was gone. The anger gives way to despair. 'Oh my god. Oh my god. Oh my fucking god. I'm fucked. I can't pass the course.' I am distraught.
As I stand there, completely lost, no money, no phone, no coursework, no bank cards, a guy walks over and asks me what's up. He's a good looking guy, short, early twenties, a bit camp, with a Swedish accent. I tell him what happened and he doesn't show too much sympathy, telling me what an idiot I am for taking my eyes off my bag. I ask him which way it is to Les Corts, which is near where I am staying, and he says he is walking that way. We walk and chat on the way, but I am not really in the mood for chatting, feeling insanely depressed and coming down hard from all the beer. As we go our separate ways, he gets ten Euros out of his wallet and gives it to me. I thank him and ask for his email address so that I can pay him back. He gives it to me but says he doesn't want me to pay him back. Instead, he says I should do something decent for someone when I get the chance. I tell him that I would anyway, but that I would remember his kindness when it happened. I thank him again and say goodbye.
I get home and I feel like shit. I crawl into bed and sleep, badly, waking up with a stinking hangover, made worse as I realise the situation again. I speak to Alan and tell him what happened, and ask if he can come with me to the police station to make a police report, as he speaks Spanish fluently. He of course agrees and offers to lend me some money. We go to the police station and make the report, and then I call the school and tell them what has happened and that I will be late coming in that day. Then I call the insurance company to register a claim.
I get to school and go straight to speak to my tutors and tell them what has happened. They are very supportive, but I am very worried about my CELTA file being lost and what it might mean. My hopes are riding on the fact that the Cambridge assessor had visited on Tuesday, and that by some stroke of luck she had seen and evaluated my file before it was lost. I hesitantly told them that my CELTA file had been in my bag, and that it was all gone. Nigel's eyes widened, "the whole fucking file?!?!", more vocal than I had ever seen him. "The whole fucking file", I quietly replied. Andrea told me not to worry, and when I offered to reconstitute the file as best I could from the work that I had emailed to myself to print at the school, she told me that it was okay, that they would put a note in my file explaining what had happened.
I went upstairs to the bar terrace and sat down with the other teachers. They were all supportive and caring, asking me if I was okay and whether I needed to borrow money. I thanked them and told them I was okay, that I had registered an insurance claim and that my host Alan had lent me some money. Then we went to lessons, and I went straight home after to prepare for my final lesson the following day; the final day of the course.
And so here we are, CELTA final day, borrowed money, no notes, no laptop, no CELTA file, a little depressed, more than a little embarrassed and disappointed in myself for having been so careless, but I had a final lesson to teach. I was pretty comfortable about it considering my situation, knowing that having got this far through the course I would have to fuck up real bad in this last lesson to fail.
The last lesson was a very relaxed affair. I had fun, possibly the most fun I had had in any other. We laughed and joked, and I shrugged and smiled when I did something silly, like handing out my exercises in the wrong order and having to go round the class taking them back in again. The class got involved in the discussion at the end and I was happy with how everyone participated. At the end of the class there was a round of applause from English students and student English-teachers alike, as there had been at the end of everyone’s final lessons.
CELTA course – finished. Everyone smiles and congratulates each other. Everyone goes upstairs to the bar terrace and orders beer. There is a table of food laid out for us in an adjacent room. We ate and drank and talked and laughed, but the happiness I felt was still filled with apprehension. It was great to finish, and we were glad to have finished the intense work that had saturated the last four weeks, especially since we knew that everyone had passed, but it had been an amazing experience and we were sad that it was over. It was an emotional time.
A little later we went out to find a karaoke bar that Emily had recommended, stopping off at a lovely Spanish bar/restaurant for a couple of drinks and some food. We had a lovely time, but I was very short of money. When we got to the karaoke bar I was down to my last twenty Euros of expendable cash, and they wanted ten Euros entry. They gave us a ‘free’ drink with that entry, but we found out once we were in that each subsequent beer cost 7 Euros. Tight.
We sat and listened to locals singing their favourite Spanish songs, hearing the occasional English tune, and a couple of us managed to get up to do a number, which I remember being rather bad. I decided to put my name down, choosing ‘You Really Got Me’ by the Kinks. After waiting for more than two hours for my number to come up I found out that the bar separated the song requests into two piles, ‘Spanish’ and ‘not-Spanish’, those ‘not’ being relegated to the bottom of the pile. Eventually Derek went to the bar and spoke to the staff and I got called up shortly after, but being a bit drunk by this point I asked Derek to come up and sing with me for support. He did, and I don’t think we did too badly, although I was a bit annoyed at having waited so long, so I ‘sang’ a bit ferociously.
A little later we left and said our drunken goodbyes, and I headed through the streets with a couple of people towards home. CELTA finished.
This is ‘The Twenty Second Blog Of Trig’, signing off.
2011-11-16
The Twenty-First Blog Of Trig - The Barcelona Diaries (Part 8 - CELTA Week Three)
CELTA, week three. We had all been nervous about teaching the upper intermediate students, having heard stories from the other group about how they were difficult to manage, since as soon as you gave them a task they flew off into discussion, in English, immersing themselves in their own little world. The group was much older, with an average age probably lying in the mid-forties. I preferred this second group, as I could talk more naturally to them, although like the elementary students they had trouble understanding my London accent. In fact, both the elementary students and the upper intermediate students told me that my accent was the most difficult to understand, among a group of teachers from Wales, Ireland, Russia, Holland, America, and others. I told them all that if they had trouble with mine, they should try Scottish, or a proper London Cockney. Even I have trouble understanding some Scots.
Teaching the upper intermediate students was more difficult grammatically, as they were of course on a higher level of understanding than elementary. I got the distinct impression that some had a better grasp of many English grammatical concepts than I did, and I was asked the odd question that I could only answer with a shrug. You didn’t shrug of course, or tell the students that you didn’t know the answer. The best way to deal with grammatical questions you cannot answer is to say, “we’ll take a look at that next lesson”, and move on with the material you have prepared. You can then address the question in the next lesson if you feel inclined to, or simply hope that they forget it if you are lazy.
The lessons went well, but the atmosphere was increasingly tense among me and my peers. We were all tired from the first two weeks of studying and teaching. We were half-way through the course and we were now under our new tutor Nigel. Nigel was lovely, a quiet reserved man who chose his words carefully. We had heard that he could be a bit harsh in feedback, which I did not see at all. He was honest in his criticism, but his calm delivery made me feel at ease. His advice was always valid, and his shy, almost sheepish delivery made everyone feel comfortable.
We handed in our assignments and waited for feedback. That week I completed my first assignment without a resubmission, which I was very happy for. I helped one of the other student-teachers with her assignment briefly one evening, meeting her in the park and proof-reading it for her, but it started to get dark and I was tired, and I did not go through it properly. I could have made an awful lot of correction in all honesty, but it was due in the following morning and I did not want to cause her to stay up through the night re-writing it, by hand, on account of what I felt were trivial errors. Maybe I should have. She had to resubmit due to these grammatical errors, and was very upset. Not that it really mattered, she resubmitted and it was fine, but she was not happy with me after that, and our relationship was not the same.
We continued our lessons in the afternoons and taught in the evenings, still enjoying the course, but everyone was feeling the strain. Towards the end of the week I buckled on my ankle going down a flight of stairs in the school, while hurriedly preparing for a lesson. My foot went completely numb in an instant and I couldn’t walk on it. Four months later that ankle doesn’t feel like it will ever heal properly.
One day that week I left the school after giving a great lesson and ran into a massive procession of people protesting the ‘crisis’, the financial bail-out of the organisations who ‘lost’ all the money in the world. I marched through the city with the people, watching, writing, and smiling, taking pictures of the happy, peaceful protesters and the aggressive-looking armed riot police. I got some wonderful photographs, which I was very sad to lose when my camera was stolen in my bag the following week.
At the end of the week we began discussing our final lesson, an hour-long lesson which would take place in the final few days. Mine turned out to be the last lesson of the course, taking place 6.30-7.30 on the final Friday. I didn’t mind this, as it gave me plenty of time to prepare. My final lesson was to be based around a news article about a chimpanzee who has been taught to communicate in sign language and to use a special computer designed for her. I had picked this myself, loving chimpanzees and liking the idea of ending the lesson with a debate on the pros and cons of keeping animals in captivity. The article was very interesting as well, and I believed the students would enjoy reading and studying it.
There was a strange mix of emotions as we approached the end of that third week. We were all now eager to finish the course, drained of our energy through the intensity of the work, but we were also sad that it was coming to an end. We had formed close friendships with each other and developed what I hesitate to call a ‘group dynamic’, but that’s what it was. Working so closely together, helping each other, worrying about each other, watching everyone progress, we had become a team, and it was sad to envisage the break-up of that team when the course finished and everyone went their separate ways…CELTA – one week left.
This is ‘The Twenty Second Blog Of Trig’, signing off.
The Twentieth Blog Of Trig - The Barcelona Diaries (Part 7 - CELTA Week Two)
Week two of the CELTA course, we had our first assignment due in on the Tuesday. I thought I had done it okay, but was not too surprised when it was returned to me for a resubmission. If our assignment did not make the grade it was handed back to us and we had to resubmit it a few days later, after addressing the points our tutors had made. I was glad for this, as my knowledge of English grammar was not the best. In fact it was probably the worst among my peers, which I was not particularly proud of, especially since I was the only English lad. Of course, I KNEW English, having spoken, read and written it my entire life, and could tell you what is grammatically correct and what is not, but I did not know the grammar rules that had been constructed around it.
We were given our second assignment, which involved talking to our students and learning about their motives for learning English, the aspects of English they had difficulty with and why, their strengths, weaknesses, errors they made, and their attitude and behaviour in class. The student-teachers worked together to gather as much information as we could about our students and shared this information with each other for use in writing our assignments, which required us to analyse and assess this information in order to say how we would help students overcome the difficulties they have and eliminate the common errors.
The pressure was on that week, as we were expected to show improvement against our first week's teaching, which we all did of course. It was almost impossible not to, certainly for those of us who were teaching for the first time, which was the category I fell into. It was interesting and fulfilling to see the improvement in the students, which you could see even after one week of lessons. Some had not studied English since they were at school, so much of their improvement was probably a result of refreshed memories, but it was fulfilling nonetheless. Looking back I have never seen a person's personality revealed so cleanly as I did when I observed my students as I taught them. You have a front row seat to human psychological development. You feel their happiness as they speak their new language correctly, no matter how little they show it. You watch them slip up, correct themselves, and you feel their happiness as they improve day-by-day.
As the week drew to an end there was a little bit of apprehension, as we were unsure how much harder it would be teaching the upper intermediate students, and for the last two weeks we were to be working under a new teaching-tutor; Nigel. Nigel was a lovely guy, quite meek in his personality, but confident in his profession and a good teacher. Some of the people in the other group had told us that he was quite strict and unyielding in his tutoring and feedback, but I was not too worried. I could tell that he was a nice guy and I would have been surprised if he had been anything other than encouraging and supportive, which he was completely.
After our last lesson with the elementary students we had a bit of an emotional goodbye to them all. A few hugs were exchanged as they thanked us for teaching them and told us how well we had all done. A couple of people gave us all their contact details and promised to stay in touch. It was a wonderful experience, a strange experience, being students ourselves, being congratulated by our own students for how well we had done. It was a very unique experience, and looking back I feel a warm feeling inside as I reminisce. I made many wonderful friends that first two weeks.
This is 'The Twentieth Blog Of Trig', signing off.
We were given our second assignment, which involved talking to our students and learning about their motives for learning English, the aspects of English they had difficulty with and why, their strengths, weaknesses, errors they made, and their attitude and behaviour in class. The student-teachers worked together to gather as much information as we could about our students and shared this information with each other for use in writing our assignments, which required us to analyse and assess this information in order to say how we would help students overcome the difficulties they have and eliminate the common errors.
The pressure was on that week, as we were expected to show improvement against our first week's teaching, which we all did of course. It was almost impossible not to, certainly for those of us who were teaching for the first time, which was the category I fell into. It was interesting and fulfilling to see the improvement in the students, which you could see even after one week of lessons. Some had not studied English since they were at school, so much of their improvement was probably a result of refreshed memories, but it was fulfilling nonetheless. Looking back I have never seen a person's personality revealed so cleanly as I did when I observed my students as I taught them. You have a front row seat to human psychological development. You feel their happiness as they speak their new language correctly, no matter how little they show it. You watch them slip up, correct themselves, and you feel their happiness as they improve day-by-day.
As the week drew to an end there was a little bit of apprehension, as we were unsure how much harder it would be teaching the upper intermediate students, and for the last two weeks we were to be working under a new teaching-tutor; Nigel. Nigel was a lovely guy, quite meek in his personality, but confident in his profession and a good teacher. Some of the people in the other group had told us that he was quite strict and unyielding in his tutoring and feedback, but I was not too worried. I could tell that he was a nice guy and I would have been surprised if he had been anything other than encouraging and supportive, which he was completely.
After our last lesson with the elementary students we had a bit of an emotional goodbye to them all. A few hugs were exchanged as they thanked us for teaching them and told us how well we had all done. A couple of people gave us all their contact details and promised to stay in touch. It was a wonderful experience, a strange experience, being students ourselves, being congratulated by our own students for how well we had done. It was a very unique experience, and looking back I feel a warm feeling inside as I reminisce. I made many wonderful friends that first two weeks.
This is 'The Twentieth Blog Of Trig', signing off.
2011-11-11
The Nineteenth Blog Of Trig - The Barcelona Diaries (Part 6 - CELTA Week One)
The first two weeks of the CELTA course we were teaching elementary students. Most spoke Spanish as their first language. Some were Spanish, some proudly declared that they were not Spanish but Catalan. The others were mostly from South America; Argentina, Brazil, Ecuador; there was a French guy, and one Algerian, some looking as nervous as we were, others sitting down to the lesson and chilling like they were at home, with an air of confident nonchalance about them.
The first week went well (other than beginning my first lesson with my flies undone, brought to my attention by one of my pupils), and I taught my lessons with confidence arising partly from the initial lack of pressure. I watched my peers teach every day with fascination. Certain aspects of personality really show when teaching, such as patience (or impatience), confidence or lack of, sense of humour. Your grasp of the subject you are teaching also felt like it was under close scrutiny, that subject happening to be the language I have spoken my entire life; no pressure. Those who had taught young children were very animated in their teaching, which was brilliant for the elementary students. You have to use a lot of gestures with elementary students, and I remember our tutor Andrea conducting a few classes (with both the English students and the student English-teachers), hardly speaking at all, prompting us to verbally engage in the lesson with amazing grace. She was not jumping about playing charades either. It was the subtlety that made her such a good teacher. She would sit on a chair with us sitting in a wide semicircle around her, say half a sentence, make a slight gesture; a pinch of her ear or a point of her finger; and like some kind of Jedi mind trick we would be saying what she wanted us to say, filling in the details of a story she told without words.
'Try not to talk too much'. 'Grade your language'. 'Ask concept-checking questions'. 'Slowly and clearly'. The teaching points after lessons helped us to improve our teaching skills and identify our weak points. Our students left at around half past seven and then the student-teachers and our tutor sat and gave each other constructive criticism, which always began with a mutual congratulations on a good lesson. In turns we told the class how we thought we'd done and what we could have done better, and then the rest of the class were asked to give input. I was in a wonderful group who were not afraid to give constructive criticism, but who were wholly supportive, considerate, and not judgemental in any way.
The group of twelve was split into two teaching groups of six. We taught the elementary class for the first two weeks. The other group taught the upper intermediary. In my group of six was Garreth from Wales, Janneke from Holland, Emily from Ireland, Elmira from Russia, Derrick from the US, and of course me, from England.
Garreth, from Cardiff, looked like an English knight of old, as described in an earlier diary. When he taught, his voice took on that of a valiant knight from a fairy tale, even more so than usual. He laughed frequently, in friendly bellows like a big friendly giant, making jokes and having fun with the class, who beamed back at him with smiles that cannot be faked. We very quickly formed the kind of friendship that transcends distance and time, the kind of bond that I felt I had formed with all my fellow student-teachers by the end of the course.
Janneke was from Amsterdam, tall, blonde, with a stern but pretty face. She was a very good teacher, but she was occasionally a little bossy with the students to begin with, which we gently told her in one of the feedback sessions, and joked about later with the intermediate students. She spoke better English than I did, and embarrassed me; the only Englishman; with her amazing grasp of English grammar.
Emily was from Dublin, only 23 years old, the youngest among us, and had taught children for many years already. She was fun, very pretty, always up for a drink, and generally a laugh to be around. She had a job lined up back home as headteacher of a new school. I think she took the course just for the experience as much as anything else. She was very patient and encouraging in her teaching, her experience shining through with every lesson she taught.
Elmira was from Moscow, strikingly pretty, with dark hair and long legs. The first thing I noticed about her was her sense of empathy and compassion. When she sensed that someone was unhappy, she unwittingly took that negative emotion upon herself, turned it around, and comforted that person with the compassion of a mother with her child. When she was excited, her exuberance induced excitement in others. She worried a lot, on behalf of others at least as much as she did for herself. Like Janneke, she embarrassed me with her grasp of English grammar, and we spent some time working together, her sharing the grammar skills that she had worked hard to learn, me sharing the practical English 'skills' that come with simply 'being English'.
Derrick was from Ohio. African American, built like a gymnast, insanely talented and intelligent, with pearly white teeth that lit up his face when he spoke, and he was an absolute pleasure to be around. From our first meeting we began talking about science and mathematics, ascending into the philosophical and metaphysical, and I very quickly felt a close bond with him. He was enthusiastically encouraging to everyone in the feedback sessions, but was still possibly the most confident, perceptive peer when it came to providing constructive criticism. Everything he said was built on respect and consideration.
We began classes at 12pm each day, giving nice time for a lie-in, but we were in the school until eight, so I would often not get home until nine, have dinner, and be starting my lesson plans and assignments by ten. I was very frequently up until the early hours working, 6am was the record. Some students managed to go out drinking and partying quite a bit and still get all their work done. I don't know how they did it, and they did better than me in the end. I was working almost every waking moment and it was not easy, but I enjoyed every minute.
I had trouble with my back the first week or so, a combination of my injury in France a few weeks before and the amount of walking I did on the first couple of days in Barcelona. Every time I winced with pain in class I felt Elmira wince for me, worrying about me in her motherly way. She tried to convince me to go to the hospital and check it out once she found out that I had not been x-rayed back in England, but I knew that if I did find out that something was wrong, there was nothing that I could do about it out there and would have to wait until I got back to England anyway, so there was no point in risking a load of worry that I didn't need if it did turn out something was wrong. Every morning I got up and went to the roof terrace in the house I was staying and stretched for ten to fifteen minutes in the sunshine. This seemed to help, and was a lovely way to start the day.
From twelve until three each day we had input sessions, where the full group of twelve student-teachers would receive tutoring on teaching methods and skills. Then we would have lunch for an hour, before an hour of feedback sessions in our teaching groups of six until five o'clock. In the feedback sessions the three of us teaching would run through our lesson plans one last time with our tutor, and the other three would run through their lesson plans for the following day.
At five o'clock our students arrived for their English lesson, and three of us taught our forty minute lessons one after the other. The other three watched and made notes for feedback later. After the second forty minute block there was a break, and we all, English students and student English-teachers, went to the terrace and chatted, drank coffee and smoked before the last forty minute leg began. I quickly made friends with many of our students, and later ended up spending some time dating a lovely Ecuadorian woman I had taught for a while.
At the end of our first week we got together on the terrace for a few beers and everyone seemed happy. The pressure was not yet on and we knew next week would be different. Next week we would be expected to have taken on all of the feedback we had been given and applied it. As such we should not be making any of the mistakes we had made in the first week. Plus we had our first assignments due in...game on.
This is 'The Nineteenth Blog Of Trig', signing off.
The first week went well (other than beginning my first lesson with my flies undone, brought to my attention by one of my pupils), and I taught my lessons with confidence arising partly from the initial lack of pressure. I watched my peers teach every day with fascination. Certain aspects of personality really show when teaching, such as patience (or impatience), confidence or lack of, sense of humour. Your grasp of the subject you are teaching also felt like it was under close scrutiny, that subject happening to be the language I have spoken my entire life; no pressure. Those who had taught young children were very animated in their teaching, which was brilliant for the elementary students. You have to use a lot of gestures with elementary students, and I remember our tutor Andrea conducting a few classes (with both the English students and the student English-teachers), hardly speaking at all, prompting us to verbally engage in the lesson with amazing grace. She was not jumping about playing charades either. It was the subtlety that made her such a good teacher. She would sit on a chair with us sitting in a wide semicircle around her, say half a sentence, make a slight gesture; a pinch of her ear or a point of her finger; and like some kind of Jedi mind trick we would be saying what she wanted us to say, filling in the details of a story she told without words.
'Try not to talk too much'. 'Grade your language'. 'Ask concept-checking questions'. 'Slowly and clearly'. The teaching points after lessons helped us to improve our teaching skills and identify our weak points. Our students left at around half past seven and then the student-teachers and our tutor sat and gave each other constructive criticism, which always began with a mutual congratulations on a good lesson. In turns we told the class how we thought we'd done and what we could have done better, and then the rest of the class were asked to give input. I was in a wonderful group who were not afraid to give constructive criticism, but who were wholly supportive, considerate, and not judgemental in any way.
The group of twelve was split into two teaching groups of six. We taught the elementary class for the first two weeks. The other group taught the upper intermediary. In my group of six was Garreth from Wales, Janneke from Holland, Emily from Ireland, Elmira from Russia, Derrick from the US, and of course me, from England.
Garreth, from Cardiff, looked like an English knight of old, as described in an earlier diary. When he taught, his voice took on that of a valiant knight from a fairy tale, even more so than usual. He laughed frequently, in friendly bellows like a big friendly giant, making jokes and having fun with the class, who beamed back at him with smiles that cannot be faked. We very quickly formed the kind of friendship that transcends distance and time, the kind of bond that I felt I had formed with all my fellow student-teachers by the end of the course.
Janneke was from Amsterdam, tall, blonde, with a stern but pretty face. She was a very good teacher, but she was occasionally a little bossy with the students to begin with, which we gently told her in one of the feedback sessions, and joked about later with the intermediate students. She spoke better English than I did, and embarrassed me; the only Englishman; with her amazing grasp of English grammar.
Emily was from Dublin, only 23 years old, the youngest among us, and had taught children for many years already. She was fun, very pretty, always up for a drink, and generally a laugh to be around. She had a job lined up back home as headteacher of a new school. I think she took the course just for the experience as much as anything else. She was very patient and encouraging in her teaching, her experience shining through with every lesson she taught.
Elmira was from Moscow, strikingly pretty, with dark hair and long legs. The first thing I noticed about her was her sense of empathy and compassion. When she sensed that someone was unhappy, she unwittingly took that negative emotion upon herself, turned it around, and comforted that person with the compassion of a mother with her child. When she was excited, her exuberance induced excitement in others. She worried a lot, on behalf of others at least as much as she did for herself. Like Janneke, she embarrassed me with her grasp of English grammar, and we spent some time working together, her sharing the grammar skills that she had worked hard to learn, me sharing the practical English 'skills' that come with simply 'being English'.
Derrick was from Ohio. African American, built like a gymnast, insanely talented and intelligent, with pearly white teeth that lit up his face when he spoke, and he was an absolute pleasure to be around. From our first meeting we began talking about science and mathematics, ascending into the philosophical and metaphysical, and I very quickly felt a close bond with him. He was enthusiastically encouraging to everyone in the feedback sessions, but was still possibly the most confident, perceptive peer when it came to providing constructive criticism. Everything he said was built on respect and consideration.
We began classes at 12pm each day, giving nice time for a lie-in, but we were in the school until eight, so I would often not get home until nine, have dinner, and be starting my lesson plans and assignments by ten. I was very frequently up until the early hours working, 6am was the record. Some students managed to go out drinking and partying quite a bit and still get all their work done. I don't know how they did it, and they did better than me in the end. I was working almost every waking moment and it was not easy, but I enjoyed every minute.
I had trouble with my back the first week or so, a combination of my injury in France a few weeks before and the amount of walking I did on the first couple of days in Barcelona. Every time I winced with pain in class I felt Elmira wince for me, worrying about me in her motherly way. She tried to convince me to go to the hospital and check it out once she found out that I had not been x-rayed back in England, but I knew that if I did find out that something was wrong, there was nothing that I could do about it out there and would have to wait until I got back to England anyway, so there was no point in risking a load of worry that I didn't need if it did turn out something was wrong. Every morning I got up and went to the roof terrace in the house I was staying and stretched for ten to fifteen minutes in the sunshine. This seemed to help, and was a lovely way to start the day.
From twelve until three each day we had input sessions, where the full group of twelve student-teachers would receive tutoring on teaching methods and skills. Then we would have lunch for an hour, before an hour of feedback sessions in our teaching groups of six until five o'clock. In the feedback sessions the three of us teaching would run through our lesson plans one last time with our tutor, and the other three would run through their lesson plans for the following day.
At five o'clock our students arrived for their English lesson, and three of us taught our forty minute lessons one after the other. The other three watched and made notes for feedback later. After the second forty minute block there was a break, and we all, English students and student English-teachers, went to the terrace and chatted, drank coffee and smoked before the last forty minute leg began. I quickly made friends with many of our students, and later ended up spending some time dating a lovely Ecuadorian woman I had taught for a while.
At the end of our first week we got together on the terrace for a few beers and everyone seemed happy. The pressure was not yet on and we knew next week would be different. Next week we would be expected to have taken on all of the feedback we had been given and applied it. As such we should not be making any of the mistakes we had made in the first week. Plus we had our first assignments due in...game on.
This is 'The Nineteenth Blog Of Trig', signing off.
The Seventeenth Blog Of Trig - The Barcelona Diaries (Part 5 - 04/07/2011)
I started writing this on 2nd August, wrote some more on 8th August, and the date now is 11th of the 11th 2011...I really should get this finished. In the previous 'Barcelona diary' I covered Sunday 3rd July. I guess that puts me at Monday 4th July, my first day on the CELTA course.
I left myself plenty of time to get to the school, but after losing myself in what I expected to be a shortcut, I arrived just on time, hot and sweaty and a little annoyed with myself. In the reception I was greeted by Gloria, the lady in charge of administration. She had a lovely smile which even the most sombre of people could not help but reciprocate. She was warm and welcoming, and gave me a sticker to write my name on and put on my chest. She then advised me to go upstairs to the terrace bar where I would meet the other trainee teachers.
I arrived upstairs to find the bar very busy and the terrace even busier. I looked around and saw a few tables of students with similar stickers to mine, and picked one at random. There sat a pretty blonde girl and a guy with a heroic knight's face and suitably long blonde hair parted at the middle. They both greeted me, the guy introducing himself as Garreth. His voice was that of a valiant knight of old, adding to the image of bloody battles in my mind, built like a rugby player, and turned out to be, in fact, a rugby player. The girl introduced herself as Janneke (with the 'j' pronounced as a 'y'), and immediately asked me if I too had a Catalan girlfriend. I told her that I didn't, but that I assumed Garreth did. I was right.
We made small talk for a short while, during which I learnt that neither of them had done all of the recommended reading or finished the pre-course task, which I had also not managed to finish. I was relieved that we were all floating in the same life-boat. Then we were called to our classroom for our first input session.
The classroom was fairly small for the twelve students that had to squeeze in, with chairs spread out in a semi-circle around the whiteboard. We had two course tutors, the first being a lovely lady called Andrea. She looked about mid-to-late thirties, with pretty Mediterranean looks which I assumed to be of Greek origin. I was thrown off by her slight Irish accent, and it turned out she was brought up in Ireland, but was in fact born to Greek parents. She was warm and encouraging to us all, and first had us all play various 'get-to-know-you' games. I got to know my fellow students briefly in the first class, but I knew the real 'getting-to-know-you' would take place in a bar somewhere, which made me slightly uncomfortable since money was very tight for me.
In our first lesson Andrea stressed to us that we had to help each other out through the course, that is was going to be a lot of hard work and that our peers would be our best friends by the end. She was right, but I wasn't too sure about one or two people to start with. Those I was unsure of changed immeasurably through the course, and I count them all as good friends. First impressions can always be misleading.
As well as the games we played, we were taken through the structure of the course, told about our assignments, teaching schedules, and were hit with the bombshell that we would all teach a 20 minute lesson on our first day! We were to give a lesson incorporating the games we ourselves had played that day. I felt a little nervous, but afterwards my peers told me that I seemed very confident when my turn came. I think we all did, successfully concealing our nerves on that first day. Of course nothing extraordinary was expected of us, it being our first day and all.
The structure of the course over the next four weeks included teaching a lesson every other day. Three teachers would teach forty minutes one day, giving the English students a total two-hour lesson a day. Our last lesson on the course would be one hour. We received all kinds of handouts, a CELTA folder to keep our course material in, and also, the most important file for our CELTA course, the CELTA course file. This was to hold all of our lesson plans (submitted the morning before every lesson for assessment), assignments, tutor feedback, records of our attendance, every piece of evidence to show that we have taken the course. They emphasised to us that we should never, under any circumstances take the file home with us. If it were to be lost we might have to do the course over again. If you know me you will know the special relevance this applies to me, being the absolute calamity that I am. As they say, 'there's always one', and it's always me.
My 20 minute lesson incorporated a game where everyone wrote two things about themselves on two strips of paper (in English), put them in a pile and then picked two out at random. They then had to find the person who it belonged to. I remember the students standing around me in a semi-circle as I gave them instructions, feeling my heart beating in my chest, and cool bead-lets of sweat penetrating through my forehead. I stayed very calm, reminded myself that nothing could really go wrong, explained in the most basic of English what they had to do, and told them to 'mingle'. Of course, none of them knew what the hell the word 'mingle' meant, and there was a moment of nerves as they all stared silently around the room. Then one asked the room in broken English, "who has a sister called 'Maria'?" Someone claimed it. One down. Then silence. I broke the silence and said two words; 'walk', 'talk'; and after a moment of hesitation they broke their circle and began 'mingling'. I looked up and caught the eyes of my fellow student-teachers at the back of the room, who smiled and winked at me. Relief. I smiled.
I connected with a couple of people the first day, getting on particularly well with Garreth the Welsh rugby player. He was a very friendly, laid back and funny guy. It's always hard though, feeling nervous and with so many names to remember, but it was a good day. I was pretty tired and I went back home soon after my lessons finished, chatted to my host Alan briefly, waffled online a bit and then hit the sack, sleeping a little badly due to the heat.
CELTA day one, done.
This is 'The Seventeenth Blog Of Trig', signing off.
I left myself plenty of time to get to the school, but after losing myself in what I expected to be a shortcut, I arrived just on time, hot and sweaty and a little annoyed with myself. In the reception I was greeted by Gloria, the lady in charge of administration. She had a lovely smile which even the most sombre of people could not help but reciprocate. She was warm and welcoming, and gave me a sticker to write my name on and put on my chest. She then advised me to go upstairs to the terrace bar where I would meet the other trainee teachers.
I arrived upstairs to find the bar very busy and the terrace even busier. I looked around and saw a few tables of students with similar stickers to mine, and picked one at random. There sat a pretty blonde girl and a guy with a heroic knight's face and suitably long blonde hair parted at the middle. They both greeted me, the guy introducing himself as Garreth. His voice was that of a valiant knight of old, adding to the image of bloody battles in my mind, built like a rugby player, and turned out to be, in fact, a rugby player. The girl introduced herself as Janneke (with the 'j' pronounced as a 'y'), and immediately asked me if I too had a Catalan girlfriend. I told her that I didn't, but that I assumed Garreth did. I was right.
We made small talk for a short while, during which I learnt that neither of them had done all of the recommended reading or finished the pre-course task, which I had also not managed to finish. I was relieved that we were all floating in the same life-boat. Then we were called to our classroom for our first input session.
The classroom was fairly small for the twelve students that had to squeeze in, with chairs spread out in a semi-circle around the whiteboard. We had two course tutors, the first being a lovely lady called Andrea. She looked about mid-to-late thirties, with pretty Mediterranean looks which I assumed to be of Greek origin. I was thrown off by her slight Irish accent, and it turned out she was brought up in Ireland, but was in fact born to Greek parents. She was warm and encouraging to us all, and first had us all play various 'get-to-know-you' games. I got to know my fellow students briefly in the first class, but I knew the real 'getting-to-know-you' would take place in a bar somewhere, which made me slightly uncomfortable since money was very tight for me.
In our first lesson Andrea stressed to us that we had to help each other out through the course, that is was going to be a lot of hard work and that our peers would be our best friends by the end. She was right, but I wasn't too sure about one or two people to start with. Those I was unsure of changed immeasurably through the course, and I count them all as good friends. First impressions can always be misleading.
As well as the games we played, we were taken through the structure of the course, told about our assignments, teaching schedules, and were hit with the bombshell that we would all teach a 20 minute lesson on our first day! We were to give a lesson incorporating the games we ourselves had played that day. I felt a little nervous, but afterwards my peers told me that I seemed very confident when my turn came. I think we all did, successfully concealing our nerves on that first day. Of course nothing extraordinary was expected of us, it being our first day and all.
The structure of the course over the next four weeks included teaching a lesson every other day. Three teachers would teach forty minutes one day, giving the English students a total two-hour lesson a day. Our last lesson on the course would be one hour. We received all kinds of handouts, a CELTA folder to keep our course material in, and also, the most important file for our CELTA course, the CELTA course file. This was to hold all of our lesson plans (submitted the morning before every lesson for assessment), assignments, tutor feedback, records of our attendance, every piece of evidence to show that we have taken the course. They emphasised to us that we should never, under any circumstances take the file home with us. If it were to be lost we might have to do the course over again. If you know me you will know the special relevance this applies to me, being the absolute calamity that I am. As they say, 'there's always one', and it's always me.
My 20 minute lesson incorporated a game where everyone wrote two things about themselves on two strips of paper (in English), put them in a pile and then picked two out at random. They then had to find the person who it belonged to. I remember the students standing around me in a semi-circle as I gave them instructions, feeling my heart beating in my chest, and cool bead-lets of sweat penetrating through my forehead. I stayed very calm, reminded myself that nothing could really go wrong, explained in the most basic of English what they had to do, and told them to 'mingle'. Of course, none of them knew what the hell the word 'mingle' meant, and there was a moment of nerves as they all stared silently around the room. Then one asked the room in broken English, "who has a sister called 'Maria'?" Someone claimed it. One down. Then silence. I broke the silence and said two words; 'walk', 'talk'; and after a moment of hesitation they broke their circle and began 'mingling'. I looked up and caught the eyes of my fellow student-teachers at the back of the room, who smiled and winked at me. Relief. I smiled.
I connected with a couple of people the first day, getting on particularly well with Garreth the Welsh rugby player. He was a very friendly, laid back and funny guy. It's always hard though, feeling nervous and with so many names to remember, but it was a good day. I was pretty tired and I went back home soon after my lessons finished, chatted to my host Alan briefly, waffled online a bit and then hit the sack, sleeping a little badly due to the heat.
CELTA day one, done.
This is 'The Seventeenth Blog Of Trig', signing off.
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