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.
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