nostalgic So the regular blogging whilst on my CELTA didn’t exactly go to plan, at all. But now I’m sat here bored, putting off preparing for tomorrows interview and I’m in the mood to reminisce. I want to put down as much as possible about the course, people, students, lessons and general experiences so that I’ll always be able to remember. First of all though I’ll start off with a bit of an update on what’s been happening since I got back. So I got a Pass A, yay for me! I’ve been applying for English teaching jobs at summer schools around the
So the plan is to teach in a summer school and gain some experience/earn some money and I really want to teach in
Anyway, back to CELTA. I wasn’t completely useless and blogged about my first couple of days in
I went into the school pretty early and picked up my keys for the apartment. Our apartment was amazing, we were so lucky, all the bedrooms were huge with tall ceilings (it’s the one in the picture). It was on Batorego which was really close to the old town and the school. The only downside was it was 78 steps up so it was a bit of a trek with the suitcase!
My two flatmates didn’t get in until about half 8 so I didn’t really get to speak to them much but they seemed really nice. I lived with a girl called Marita and a guy called Charlie, both were 26 and from the
We woke up the next morning and set off to the school for our first day of CELTA. I was SO nervous. They throw you in at the deep end and we taught on our first day. Only for 20 minutes but I think it was still pretty harsh. The lessons were only ‘getting to know you’ lessons and I had to set-up and design a board game ‘Tell us about’ where students had to work there way around the board and when they landed on a square they had to talk about their topic for at least 30 seconds. My topics were things such as favourite film, what you’d do if you won the lottery, family etc. It went ok but I was so nervous, still my lesson was deemed ‘to standard’.
There were twelve of us on the course altogether. Me, Marita, Charlie in one flat, Barry, Ed, Chris from the UK and Josh from the US in another flat and then Maciek, Blanca and Ella who lived in Krakow, Martyna who was from another part of Poland and staying with a friend and Caroline who was from Africa but was married to a Polish guy and living in a village about an hour away. We were an odd bunch but we made it work and got on really well.
(Clockwise from top left: Ella, Me, Martyna, Marita, Barry, Charlie, Ed, Maciek, Chris, Carol, Declan, Basia, Josh, Blanca and Magda) The last day of CELTA! Sad times!
The first day was mostly admin bits and games to help us get to know each other and it was a lot of fun. Our tutors were amazing, really funny and supportive and amazing teachers. We had three, Declan, Basia and Magda, they were very different but all excellent in their own way.
That night all of us from the
That week I was teaching Tuesday, Thursday and Friday so I had plenty of time to prepare. Our first group were pre-intermediate and we used a Language to Go course book. The students were really nice and we actually had a night out with them at the end of the second week. There were usually between 10 and 12 of them and there English varied dramatically, we had one guy who had been leaning English for a week and a couple of girls who could easily have been in Upper Intermediate.
Tuesday’s lesson was 40 minutes and I taught them different sports and the verbs used with them e.g. swim, go swimming, do gymnastics, play football. It went well and I got above standard, I was still really nervous though and when I’m excited or nervous I speak too quickly which was the main weakness on most of my tutors comments.
Thursday’s lesson was also 40 minutes and this time I taught giving advice, specifically using ‘should’ e.g. you should go to the doctors. In the final freer activity students were supposed to write down three of their our problems and then ask people ‘what do you think I should do?’ and their partners were supposed to reply ‘you should…..’. It didn’t quite go to plan but it mostly went well and I got another above standard. In fact all of my lessons bar the first were above standard, which I’m pretty proud of.
Fridays lesson was only 20 minutes and I did a live listening lesson about my favourite teacher.
In the mornings we had input sessions, two a day, on lots of different things, most were really interesting and helpful. Although I don’t think everyone enjoyed them!
My 22nd birthday was on the Saturday and on the Friday night most of us went out to a few different pubs. It was a really good night and I got lots of birthday drinks, which is always a plus! Maciek bought me a birthday cupcake with a sparkling candle on Friday morning and got me hooked on More Than a Cookie, a cookie and cake shop, they were sooo good. I woke up Saturday morning feeling pretty rough, and I’d lost my voice!! So I had a pretty chilled day, did a birthday shopping and went for a few drinks at night.
My birthday (Marita, Martyna, Barry, Me, Josh, Ed, Maciek, Chris and Charlie)
The next week I only had to teach one lesson, our hour long one, but we had to do four assignments over the length of the course so it wasn’t like we had plenty of time on our hands!
My hour long lesson was on Tuesday and I taught reading and comparatives. It was mainly boys vs girls and it went really well. Basia observed the lesson and said it went so well because there was a lot of personalisation, apparently I was asking them their opinions a lot. For example I’d drill ‘girls are more intelligent than boys’ and then ask the boys if they agreed! It was really fun.
The Wednesday night most of us on the course went to the Jazz Rock Café with most of our students and some of the other groups. There were probably about 30 of us, it was crazy. The club was underground and painted black with weird dolls in cages. It started off quite rocky but got really heavy towards the end of the night and we did a bit of head banging, not something I’d done before but I really enjoyed it. About 2ish Josh and Barry were getting fed up and most people had left so we decided to go somewhere else. We ended up going somewhere playing Michael Jackson and met these two Polish guys called Chris and Chris and made our own dancefloor so we could bogey along to Thriller!
Barry with two students Zbig and Vishek
Ed with two students Yustina and Gosia
Charlie with students Theresa, Iwona, Theresa's friend Katie and Marta
Wow that was more than I was planning to write. Procrastinating is dangerous! I best get back to preparing for my interview tomorrow, part 2 will hopefully be coming soon....