Today was my first day of class for my CELTA course. (It's pronounced SELTA.)
There are 11 of us in the course. Elisabeth (French), Tyler (American-CA), Susan (Irish), David (French), James (English), Chris (New Zealand), Carolyn (American-OH), Guy (English), Maria (Irish/American-IL), and Stuart (Scottish). They are a nice group of people.
We were in class from about 9:30-11:15, and we went over the basics. We introduced ourselves, played some name games, met Marian, one of our two tutors, and got the general gist of how the schedule will work. We filled out some paperwork for Cambridge and reviewed our booklets for the course. Then we took a break. Then we met Bror, our other tutor, and learned about learners' purposes, goals and expectations. Then we took another break. At 11:30, we were broken into two smaller groups for an introduction to teaching practice. My smaller teaching practice group, lead by Marian, consists of Elisabeth, Chris, James, Guy and I. We will teach a group of seven or eight lower level students wanting to learn English. These students are unemployed French adults, and they come for 2 hours every day. Marian shared our first assignment with us. We need to interview one of these students and write an essay of our findings. Then she gave us our teaching assignments. I will be teaching a "Getting to Know You" exercise tomorrow, and will teach a bona fide half-lesson on Wednesday.
From 1-2, James, Chris and I went to lunch. It was pouring during our walk to lunch, and it stopped once we got in the pasta restaurant for lunch, and started again just in time for us to head back. After lunch, the students came in, and we observed Marian teaching for 90 minutes. She has a lovely, gentle-yet-firm way about her. Then we did interviews of all 7 students that came to class. (The only problem with this population of student is that when they find a job, they don't come back!) The students left around 4:15. We gave Marian our feedback on the lessons and interviews. Then we were allowed to ask questions about our lessons. Were were dismissed early today, at 4:45.
In the morning I was really overwhelmed. I asked Marian about it on one of the breaks, and she said it's 100% normal. I started to feel better after I watched Marian in action...I had a certain feeling of reassurance come over me. I have some quiet confidence knowing I can do what she did. I HAVE done what she did.
Marian did a lesson on questions and question structure. She had the students list the top 10 sports in France with the intent of later formed questions about them. Students listed words like "T1" and "Athletics" as two of the top ten sports. I, of course, was flabbergasted. What on earth are T1 and Athletics?! I asked Guy, and he looked at me like I had 6 heads. T1 is the same as NASCAR and Athletics is track and field. There are lots of differences from British English and American English. They say affirmative and negative words instead of positive and negative words....they spell traveling with two l's (travelling), and spell things we spell with a z with an "s," like memorise. I got concerned that I would need to change my style of speaking for the benefit of the students in the class, and if that were the case, I'd feel out of my element. During our afternoon discussion/feedback session, I shared my concerns with Marian. She surprised me greatly. She told me that I am a wonderful resource for the students in the class. She called me "enriching" and said that they're lucky to have an American teacher so that they can have that information. She turned all my concerns into huge positive, and it ended the class on a high note.
A group from the class went out to the bar after class. I had errands to run, so I didn't join them.
I slept terribly last night, and so I'm going to read some of this dry teaching stuff and doze off. :)
xo, aKiP
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