Well, I've been slacking and I know it. But I'm going to try to be responsibile with this, so here goes. I've finished my class and now I'm working on finding a job. I learned a fair amount about teaching English, which as I have found is quite different from teaching anything else. You have to talk as little as possible so as not to confuse the students. This has been a challenge for me, but I think I've gotten better. The solution seems to be being very prepared and using gestures and pictures. They have taught us to teach only in English and not to speak any Spanish, because it will seem like a crutch to the students. During the class we got to practice teaching to real English learners. I taught 6 lessons, 2 with a partner, to all 4 levels that we offered: Low beginner, high beginner, low intermediate, and high intermediate. It was impressive how much the ability level changed between each level. Low beginner was working on past tense verbs (ex: buy/bought), low intermediate was working on modals (You should have...), and high intermediate was like a conversation class. Some of the classes were difficult because of the students and others because the page in the book I was supposed to teach didn't give me much to go on. Either way, I got my certification on Friday and I'm good to go! I can now use that to teach anywhere in the world. That's a pretty nice job prospect.
This is about 2/3 of the class and most of the teachers at breakfast
This is about 2/3 of the class and most of the teachers at breakfastI had a good time with the other students in my class, which is a good thing because we spent a lot of time together. When all we had to do was plan lessons, we got a little silly at some times. On the last day we had breakfast at one lady's apartment and then the program took us out for a fancy graduation dinner.
Today started the job search process. I spent the afternoon in a cafe looking into several institutes that had been recommended to me and crafting a cover letter to them in Spanish. Once I get this email done, I hope that I'll be able to send it out to several companies. Tomorrow I'm going to work on crafting a classifieds ad for the paper to get private lessons.
Here are some pictures of my friends here:
