Whoops, BIG GAP between posts but I am still alive.Sorry! Just busy! Lots of assistants have arrived now and I’ve started work (officially no longer someone whojust spends all day at the beach) so I have been doing lots of interesting things.
I’ve just finished my first week of work! It was mostly a week of observation where I saw how various teachers taught their classes. This was really interesting as the style is very different to teaching in the UK, it is very teacher led and would be classed as quite old fashioned in the UK I think. My work will be different in that I will be working with small groups and doing everything possible to make them talk, which they hopefully will, otherwise it will be a long lesson! They have never had a language assistant before, so the fact that they have time to speak may take some getting used to as it is so grammar-focussed here. The kids on the whole seem quite sweet and eager to learn English, and it’s a school which gets results in better than average area so there aren’t too many problems. The teaching staff are all so friendly, especially the English teachers who I am working with, but I am also observing other subjects to get a wide range of examples. I even observed a lesson where they were dissecting sardines, which given how much I simply love fish was lots of fun.
Tomorrow is the start of real work, and standing in front of a class on my own. I didn’t think I was nervous, but then it hit me this weekend that this is actually a real job and that I will be a responsible adult for seven months, which is a bit scary! (But exciting at the same time!)
My flat is now full! I live with a French student, Angela, and an American language assistant, Molly. Both are super nice and there is a relaxed atmosphere in the apartment. It has been great having a fellow foreigner around to tackle scary things like bank accounts and housing forms, as they become a lot less daunting when you have a partner in crime! And we can take awkward first day photographs like this one:
p.s. I wore stripes deliberately to make a good impression 🙂
One More Step Along The World I Go... 