Adios Barca

Adios indeed.. TEFL course is finished (all bar the drinking). We are now qualified teflers.
It was tough. There was lots of work, 7 or 8 teaching practices and constant projects to keep handing in. Oh - and then there was the grammar exam. But we´ve got through it and will both be certified tomorrow. Not before time.

Barca is still fine - it´s been surprisingly cold at night, but now it´s beginning to warm up - in readiness for summer.

We´re returning to Blighty on Saturday. Back to Spinneybrook Way and a bit of stability, but I guess it won't be long before we´re on the road again.

It's been a really good course. Excellent teachers, lot's of support and really good crowd of fellow students.

When we set off on the course there was 5 Americans - Dale, Elisabeth, Geoff, Luke and Tricia.
Then there was Lucy (Irish), Rod (Scottish) and the rest of us (Briny, Anna, Dan, Sophie, Rita and me) who are all English.

Me and Rita are the oldies - old enough to be everyone´s mum & dad. We´re not, but I guess that if we were we'd have even less money and Rita would be very fat. Also, I wouldn't have called a son of mine Geoffrey (although he's a great bloke).

Dale had already done a load of stuff for the course on the Internet, so he didn't have to attend the last couple of weeks (save coming in for his grammar test).
Luke, well Luke. He absented himself on day 2, came in really late two days later, fell ill over the weekend, missed another couple of classes and then seemed to be pulling himself round a bit.
Come grammar test day (Wednesday), no sign of Luke.

He´s not been seen since, but has put in a complaint about one of our tutors (Lisa), who is actually sh!t hot at her job, and now he's demanding his money back. He won't get it.
He seems to have some problems, does Luke.

Tomorrow night (Friday 30th) there is a heavy drinking session on the cards. We´ve been realtively moderate so far, no staying out after midnight (or not much), but if I can get a good night's sleep tonight I could be up for a few beverages.

Rita's just come out of her final teaching session - so we're both done now. Mine was earlier this evening and wasn't brilliant. I think Rita's was good. It was our own materials projects tonight.

I based mine around ´the English Pub' and I'd set up this shove ha'penny type game as a sort of activate for the students. You never know which group of people you are going to be teaching and mine turned out to be the least likely set of Shove Ha'penny players. They may have been around in the heyday of the game, but they certainly were not in England.

There were seven women - aged between about 55 and 75 - and one bloke. Suffice to say it was all a little chaotic.

Picture the scene - there´s a big square of card marked out as a football pitch in the middle of the table. There's me asking two teams of middle/old aged people to gather round.
On the table there's 5 coins. One serves as the ball, two serve as ´strikers´and there are two goalies.

I ask the first question 'what's the past simple tense of stop' , 'stopped' is the instant answer.
Oh - that wasn't too difficult. Team A get to scrape there coins across the pitch. 'What's the
past simple tense of kneel', 'Knelt'. Oh - that wasn´t too difficult either. Team 'B' to go.

And so it went.

I thought I was getting an elementary group to teach and all these were advanced students, so every question I had prepared they knew (past tense of know) the answer to .
As the object of the game was for the team who answered correctly to have a shove, they ended up shoving the coins backward and forward for a good 10 minutes, before I blew time and called it a draw. Bloody Hell, I'm tired now.

Barcelona - TEFL Course

Yes, yes the fun is over. Or maybe not, Barca´s looking beautiful and it´s sunny and 18C today.

We´ve been back to the UK for just over two weeks and stayed with friends and relatives, opened lots of bad news post (not really bad news - just things to do and bills to pay). As a spur of the moment thing, though, we have signed up for a one month TEFL course in Barcelona. That´s where we are now - in the computer Lab at the college to be exact. We seem to be about twice as old as all the other pupils on the course, which surprised me a bit.
I expected to see other late Gappers on the course.

I doubt whether this will be kept up as a daily blog, as we´ve got some work to do, apparently!

We´re back in the UK on the weekend of the 24th March for Esther & Adrian´s wedding in Southampton (Esther is Leigh´s neice) but actually arrive back for real the weekend after. If Spinneybrook´s not let, we will move in there. If it is let, we´ll resume our former Paddy & Max lives, the Mad Nomadic Merrix!

Hi Peops, Rita here! Oh yes, Work to do. This is day one of our course and we are plunged in with some Bright Young Things all in their mid-twenties. We could be their parents! They are all alarmingly confident and extrovert. We had to teach to our fellow-classmates today for approx. 4 minutes ´"teaching" them some skill but we were warned we must not "lecture". Our subject matter was to be our own. Leigh´s subject was how to organise a Pub Quiz and my subject was how to fold a Vietnamese pancake roll. I demonstrated this with a sheet of A4. Mine was singularly unimpressive compared to our "Confident Bright Young Things" all of whom appeared to have a wealth of skills to draw upon. Who cares - we got through it! This evening we have our first session of observing an experienced teacher in a real class for 45 minutes - and then we all whizz off for some TAPAS courtesy of our Tutor.

Our accommodation is just fine. We have one small bedroom and shared bathroom with a great shower. We are in a house of 3 school teachers all in their 30´s. The area though central is really first class and very safe. The house is clean, tidy and well organised and the library opposite us is fantastically modern, large and well equipped. Also there are parks nearby for studying and exercising (if one has a mind to). So, all in all, it is looking very promising but we suspect that it will not be without its seriously challenging moments, i.e. there is a 3 hour Grammar exam in week 4 of the course and if you fail this, then you fail the course! On Wednesday we start our Teaching Practise for real with real Spanish students. Oh, Mon Dieu! Sometimes these things that strike one "as a good idea at the time" maybe a bloody bad idea when one has one´s got their "CAN`·T DO" head on (i.e most of the time!). Oh well, I guess life is for living...(precisely so, so what on earth are we doing here, putting ourselves through it...?)

More tomorrow if not too swamped by HOMEWORK and studying GRAMMAR: