It's the end of CELTA, week 1, and the students I've worked with represent a much broader sampling of the world than I'm accustomed to meeting. I've befriended and taught people from Korea, Thailand, Turkey, Iran, Japan, Belarus, India, Brazil, Italy, Russia, Mexico, and Africa.
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| Someday I'll go here |
Every student and fellow trainee I've encountered has altered my worldview, but the one who really takes the cake is Margaret. Margaret from Montreal is the epitome of polite. Her perpetual attentive eyes are endearing, and her constant polite babble makes my simple "Thank you"s sound rude.
The CELTA training environment is overly polite in general, but when the end of week two rolls around, I'm sure good manners will prove to be essential. The course only lasts four weeks, but when it's finished, I'm sure day one will feel like it was years ago.
An average day goes something like this:
8:30 - 9:45 - CELTA Session
9:45 - 10:00 - Break
10:00 - 11:15 - CELTA Session
(Covering teaching topics such as oral accuracy, lesson planning, receptive skills, phonology, lesson structure, intonation)
11:20 - 12:30 - Supervised lesson planning
12:30 - 1:30 - Lunch (which means more supervised lesson planning while you eat a sandwich)
1:30 - 3:30 - Teaching practice (Teaching a 40 minute slot to a group of foreign language students and observing your co trainees)
3:30 - 3:40 - Break (Which means required mingling with the students to build rapport)
3:40 - 4:30 - Teaching practice group feedback
4:30 - 5:30 - Independent lesson planning
5:30 - 6:00 - Self inflicted Independent lesson planning
8:00 - 11:00 - More self inflicted lesson planning
Overall, I try not to think about the workload. If I start to freak myself out, I do my best to remember the experiences this will open up for me when I get through it. A sea of new information is waiting for me on the other side of CELTA, and the best thing I can do is to focus on how much I'm already learning. I've seen my name written at the top of a student's notes, met an Italian pop singer named Gianfranko Cozzolino, and come face to face with the joy of life itself in my new Thai friend.
Experiences like these are life changing, but for some odd reason, what I hope I always remember is what I learned when I met Margaret from Montreal: It's true what they say about Canadians.
Seriously though, Gianfranko can sing. Look:
