Teaching Time

Whew! The CELTA facilitators weren’t joking when they said we’d be teaching right away! I taught my first lesson today to a group of intermediate speakers. Although I was super nervous, it went really well. It’s amazing how much planning for a language lesson for adults is so similar to planning for my elementary students, yet so different. I think the fact that there were 15 adults as my students (many around my age), combined with having a group of my peers watching, is what made things a bit stressful. However, I think it’s good that they throw us right into it so we don’t have a lot of time to over-plan and worry constantly. I’ll be teaching a 45 minute lesson on Thursday (about present continuous verbs – what?!) and two 60 minute lessons next week. I must admit that my head is spinning a bit the more I learn about English grammar, and try to communication in Spanish outside of school . . . It’s been a great challenge so far – I kind of love being back in school while teaching at the same time! (You can see where the planning happens in the pictures of my room above!)

It’s been great meeting everyone in the program here. There are currently two CELTA courses occurring, each with 10 students and 2 teachers. In my class, there are two people from England, one from Wales, one from Japan, one from Spain, and five of us from the US (representing LA, San Diego, New York, Chicago, and Denver). Of the ten of us, seven of us are living in the same complex, which is really nice. Many of the students are hoping to find work in Spain after the course, so it might become a bit competitive! On the positive side, this also means I might have some potential roommates . . .

I’m quickly adjusting to our routine here – it’s pretty fantastic! A typical day seems to be: go to school around 9:00, teach, coffee break at 10:30, teach, another break at 12:00, class, lunch at 2:15 (I’ve learned to make sure I have plenty to eat before this time!), class, head home around 6:00, plan for the next day, have dinner around 10:30, go to bed around midnight. It’s definitely a different time schedule, but I like it. A group of us went out for tapas and drinks Sunday night and the streets were packed with families at 11:30pm! As Carmen, a Spanish woman and one of my roommates, said, “Spaniards live to be outside, eating and drinking.” My response was, “I’m meant to live here!”