Catching up...by Theo

So we haven't blogged for a while as we've been pretty busy...

Buying a house:
We've found a lovely three-bedroom semi in north Bristol, near where I'm going to be working from September. Things are going relatively smoothly - the surveyor's report threw up a few kinks, but nothing major - and we're hoping to complete on August 1st.

Starting a new (old) job:
I'm back at the language school where I taught last summer. Teaching a class of 9, adult, motivated students who are genuinely interested in the topic has been an absolute pleasure. I am wondering why the hell I wanted to switch from TEFL to teaching in secondary schools?

Socialising:
After my PGCE course finished we sped down to Cornwall for the weekend, then back up the M5 to Oxford, before heading to a few kids' parties in Bristol, hit Domstock in Fairford and I managed to catch up with some old friends in London last Saturday.

And being parents of course.

Actually, we're thinking of stopping the blog after August. We seem to have both run out of steam a bit and, as I'm about to take up a teaching role, reducing my web-presence would be no bad thing. The blog which began as a chronicle of our wedding preparations, then our honeymoon, followed by our life in Madrid, seems to have run its course. It may be time to move on...

first observation - by Theo

Today I had my first observation by my University Tutor, a man who has trained at least one person in every English Department west of Reading (or so it seems - he's been at the University's Education Department for 25 years). This was a formal observation which would count towards my final grade. So no pressure then.

Actually I wasn't feeling too much pressure. I'd been observed by somebody in the 15 or so classes I had taught prior to today (plus loads as an EFL teacher), so wasn't feeling too unnerved at the prospect of having somebody commenting on my every utterance. Plus I always try to keep in mind that it is through being observed and reflecting on the comments you get back that you learn. So, bring it on.

I was teaching a Year 10 class that I had taught twice before. Their aim at the end of the unit is to write a review of the film, Jaws, and after two classes looking at how film makers use camera angles and sound to create tension, we were now looking at effective language use in reviews. The class went well. Not brilliantly, but a bit more than OK. It wasn't inaccessibly hard, but it wasn't a stroll in the park for them either. They behaved. They learned (something). We finished on time. It was alright.

I've still got loads to do. Both my Associate Tutor (who was quite nervous as it's her first year as an AT and she had to give her feedback first - so essentially she was being observed too!) and University Tutor were complimentary and thought I was doing better than they might expect at this point in the PGCE course. They were really pleased with my planning and consideration of the needs of individual students; I've my EFL experience to thank for that I guess. But there is plenty of room for me to improve, with a few of the things being:

• I need to think about how to get the students to reflect on their work, to realise what they have learned.
• I need to cut down the amount of Teacher Talk and build in more steps to the tasks so the students can guide themselves through with minimum input from me.
• Leaving space for individual work and only doing group work if there is a real point to it.

It's that last point where my EFL background isn't helping. "Discuss with your partner" is such a CELTA staple - language is communicative, and when teaching English as a Foreign Language, just getting students to talk to each other and convey meaning can be a learning objective and outcome all on its own. In contrast, times when EFL students write in silence for 15 minutes or more are rare. So changing what my view of what learning looks like is going to be crucial.

Student again - by Theo

As I took my seat on Monday it was impossible not to feel both a sense of nostalgia and of time standing still; after all, nearly 11 years previously I had sat down in the very same room (Chemistry Lecture Theatre 1) for my Undergraduate Philosophy lectures. Where did that decade go?!?! There I was again, a Bristol University student, for the third time, this time to begin a PGCE in Secondary English.

It's been a great first week; challenging, but not too intense. I seem to be in a reasonably privileged position of having a background in literature, a very solid grounding in English grammar and also teaching experience; few of my 29 course mates can say the same, it seems. I've been surprised at the range of backgrounds - some did degrees in Drama, others in Linguistics. They are a lovely bunch, though the demographics would surprise nobody - 1 male student to every 5 female ones, with only one student being obviously of a BME background. Across the wider PGCE course - 200-odd students studying to be teachers in Science, History, MFL, Geography, Maths, RE and Citizenship - this seems to be the case too. I've met a couple of other parents, though there are none doing English. However I did run into an old classmate, Susa, who is studying to be a German and Spanish Teacher - she only got a place on the course recently and it came as a complete, but very pleasant, surprise to met her at the lecture.

So far most of the lectures have just dealt with the 'admin' side of the course, plus getting to know you style activities within our subject groups. The real work begins next week I suspect, and already we've got piles of reading to get through. What work we have done - lesson planning, grammar analysis - hasn't seemed all that far away from techniques I'm used to in a TEFL context, all guided discovery and CELTA style planning proformas. We'll be in schools though from the first week of October and that will be a huge difference. I can't wait actually!

TEFL no more - by Theo

Today marks something like the end of an era for me; not only was it my last day at the Clifton language school where I've been working these last two months (more on that later), but also my last day for the foreseeable future as an EFL teacher. No longer will I be teaching English as a foreign language to foreign students; from now on I'll be teaching it to native speakers.

It's been quite a journey. It was 3 years ago that Kate and I decided we wanted the amazing adventure of our honeymoon travels in Sheena to continue and that we weren't going to return to Bristol or indeed the UK. So casting around for some means of supporting ourselves while living overseas, we enrolled on a CELTA course in Barcelona. We loved it, both of us really enjoying the reality of the classroom and the challenge of meeting the learners' needs. So when I found a job in Madrid, we headed back to the UK for Christmas to fill up the van with more of our things for the move to Spain.

Things have changed dramatically since then; Sheena's long since gone to a new home, Rosie has arrived and we've moved back to Bristol - but my job as an English Teacher has stayed a constant. I've really loved it. Sure there have been days when I haven't exactly bounced into the class full of enthusiasm, but generally I've been lucky enough to have keen, motivated students willing to participate in whatever crazy activity or bizarre discussion I've concocted for them. Some have even had the decency to laugh at my jokes!

My Spanish students in Madrid were always lovely and I remember them fondly. However, my experience these past two months teaching at a language school in Clifton on their summer program is that Spanish students, along with Turkish ones, are the absolute worst at slipping into their native tongue at the earliest opportunity. It's been quite the Tower of Babel in my classes at times, with a new intake every Tuesday and students staying for anything from 2 weeks to 7 months, but at one stage I had a class with one student each from: Germany, Hungary, Italy, Kazakhstan, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Slovakia, Switzerland, Taiwan and Turkey. Not much opportunity there for them to chat in languages other than English! But allow two Spanish or Turkish students to sit next to each other and they would slip into their mother tongue as soon as your back was turned. The Swiss (especially the German speaking ones) were by far and away the best at keeping to English - one pair, who were in an optional class on British Life & Culture I was running, were best friends from back home, yet when I passed them in the street one day I was amazed to hear them speaking to each other in English. That's dedication!

My main class - which also had a lot of Swiss - was also pretty good and we celebrated the last morning (all but one were also leaving that day too) by carrying out a survey of Clifton cafes (English in use), debating their relative merits and then testing our conclusions with breakfast in the Primrose Cafe - which was just as good as I remembered. They were a lovely bunch of students with a real drive to learn, and while I didn't get to know them like some of my students in Madrid (well, most had only been here for a month or less) I'll miss them.


Naturally, I don't expect to get students with quite such high levels of motivation in the next stage of my teaching career, my PGCE, which starts in 3 weeks. Hell, I'll probably be pleading for a class of Spaniards come October...

First day at the new job - by Theo

So for the two months before my PGCE starts I have found work with an English language school here in Bristol, where I'll be teaching during the week. Yesterday was the first day, so of course I wanted everything to go smoothly. Ha. Ha. Ha.

First of all, getting there. The school is based in Clifton, very close to where I once lived, but we're now over in Redfield - nowhere near. Fortunately there is a train that runs from Lawrence Hill station to Clifton Down, with a 10 minute walk at either end. Fine. Except the first day I had to be there at 8.30am, while the train arrives at 8.25. Not to worry - I figured I'd get my bike back from the friends we had left it with and cycle both ends.

Despite having pumped up both tires the night before, the back wheel felt a little soft as I wheeled the bike out of our yard. So on arrival at the station I asked a lady cyclist if I could borrow her pump. No problem, but just as the tyre was beginning to feel more solid, I pushed a little too hard and broke her pump. This was naturally extremely embarrassing, and I immediately gave her £10 (way more than the pump was worth, but what the hell) to compensate her. However, I had also obviously broken something else, as within 2 minutes my tyre was now completely flat. I left the bike locked up at the station and, with a sinking feeling, jumped on the train. I'm not sure what impression I gave to my new colleagues when I arrived late to our first staff meeting sweating and out of breath having ran all the way from Clifton Down, but it wasn't what I'd had in mind.

Still, after that the day seemed to go OK.... let's hope that's my one disaster out of the way!

Farewells - by Theo

So an era has come to an end. We're on the cusp of leaving Madrid; today most of our belongings shipped out and we'll follow, also by ship, on Wednesday. I've already finished work - Wednesday was my last day, which is to be the subject of this blog.

Working in a language school is a strange dynamic. You have colleagues but you don't really work with them; after all there's only ever one of you in a classroom. Sure, we swap lesson ideas and banter during the brief breaks between classes, but unless you're highly sociable (and I, as a new father, haven't been) you don't really get to know each other. In fact I know my colleagues who shared Spanish classes with me, both of whom were new this year, perhaps better than those who joined with me, two years ago.

Still this is not to say I won't miss them, or the boss and his wife, who were both hugely supportive to Kate and myself during Kate's pregnancy and Rosie's first few weeks. So I was more than happy to join them for raciones and drinks in Goya after work on Wednesday and then again in the Retiro for a picnic the following day - I thought I had stayed out reasonably late, heading home at midnight, only to find most of my (now former) colleagues had stayed out until 6am! I guess I never quite got the hang of that aspect of the Spanish lifestyle.

However, I think it's inevitable that when teaching English, or possibly any subject, it's with your students that a real bond forms, especially in the short-term. After all, if they stay the course you'll end up spending a considerable amount of time with them over the months, much of which will hopefully be by turns enjoyable, frustrating, amusing, challenging and sometimes outright hilarious. Such shared experience usually helps form bonds and ties, though not always: Of the two classes of intermediate teenagers I had this year, the group that were all new students to me in October turned out in full to say goodbye, while the group that included students I'd been teaching for 2 years was a total no-show. Not quite sure what that proves, but I'm sure it proves something.

So it was somewhat gratifying that my favourite group (now I've left I think I'm allowed to admit I had favourites), an adult proficiency class, pretty much all turned out on their last day (Tuesday), despite the fact that they'd already had the exam results back and most other classes weren't even half full. We had a fun time imagining which celebrities might make good English teachers ("David Beckham... well, he didn't speak English very well at the start of his career, but he does now, so he's clearly been through the learning experience") and then, joined by a former classmate who had already passed the Proficiency exam, we grabbed a table in the Plaza de Felipe II and spent a very enjoyable couple of hours setting the world to rights in both English and Spanish.

What a shame I forgot to take my camera to all three farewells.

Fluency Schmuency - by Theo

Coming from a country with one of the lowest rates of knowledge of a second language in Europe, if not the world, it's hardly surprising that we should misunderstand what it is to truly master a foreign language. In England we talk about being "fluent" in a language, usually equating this with having complete control over said tongue.

Not so. Fluent, from fluid, simply means to be able to talk without hesitations or significant pauses in a smooth stream of words. Your pronunciation may be atrocious, you might put the emphasis in totally the wrong places, your prose could be littered with errors and you might be completely incapable of understanding the response you elicit. Doesn't matter; you're fluent, and as far as most English people are concerned, that's enough. Forget the fact that native speakers might be completely confused by your gnomic (yet, fluent) utterances, we feel we've done our bit by blurting out our foreign phrases in one, smooth go.

Before moving to Spain I was just as guilty of this, equating fluency with being able to 'speak' a language (also a bad term - after all it's not much good being able to 'speak' a language if you can't understand the response). In fact, upon taking one of my first classes for Spanish learners of English and finding all my students to be incredibly fluent and generally faultless in English, I was astounded to discover that they were studying for the Cambridge First Certificate in English. The First Certificate. There are two more, higher level exams after that, Advanced and Proficiency. As a rookie teacher I struggled to imagine what more these almost word-perfect teenagers had to learn about the English language. I mean they were fluent, what more did we want?

My own learning experience of Spanish and my continual struggles with French have enlightened me somewhat. I am now 'fluent' in Spanish, though I'm still a long way off being word-perfect, or understanding the majority of things said to me in Spanish. Hopefully though, after 10 months of intermittent self-study, I'll be getting back to Spanish lessons and striving to improve. Or rather I'll be bringing Spanish lessons to me, having persuaded many of my teaching colleagues to band together for an in-house teacher. Meanwhile, having been allotted 4 classes of Proficiency level students in this academic year's timetable, I'll be finding out exactly what more there is to learn about English beyond fluency.

little buggers

I rather question the wisdom of not starting the teenagers' party until midnight - really, if we wanted them to go to bed and stay there it would have been more sensible to have finished earlier than 2am. As, inevitably, several teens hooked up with a member of the opposite sex in the brand new disco at La Alberca, us counselors spent the majority of the night patrolling the grounds with torches and water-pistols trying to ensure the teens stayed in their own bungalows. Thankfully they didn't - I mean it would have been incredibly dull if they had all been good - with at least 7 teens being caught either climbing out of or into windows. Seeing as I busted all seven of them personally, requiring my water pistol to be repeatedly refilled, I wasn't too bothered by this; in fact I was quite enjoying it. Funnily enough the only thing I ever got in trouble for at boarding school was being out of my room at night, so I didn't really feel I was in any position to criticise. However, some of the other counselors took it very seriously, treating it almost as a personal insult, and when I finally caught the last 3 by staking out their bungalow as the other staff ran around searching the grounds, a rather intense Guantanamo Bay style interrogation began! Having been assured that none of the campers had any alcohol (or worse) and having nipped the after-hours party squarely in the bud, we finally made it to bed at 5.30am. The effect of this on my fellow counselors (seen below in white) was rather predictable.

we'll miss you...

Yesterday I waved goodbye to my first job here in Spain - for 6 months I've been teaching at a language academy in Pueblo Nuevo, but in October Kate and I are starting new jobs at a different academy in O'Donnell. Thursday night saw me making repeated trips to local bars with my adult students as we toasted the end of the academic year and said goodbyes (mostly in Spanish). All of my students said they were sad I was leaving and that they had been hoping that I was going to be their teacher the following year. I, rather disloyally, suggested that if they really wanted to continue in my class they could always move academies with me:

"Where is your new academy?"
"It's in O'Donnell - 6 metro stops away."
"Oh no, that's too far. I come here because it is so near my house."

They aren't going to miss me that much then!!

from Demons to Angels

or: Never Underestimate The Power Of The Sticker

At least where 8 year-olds are concerned. On Tuesday night I was wondering if my decision to start teaching two children's classes was a spectacular mis-kick on my part. I had watched my predecessor handle the groups without too much trouble a few days earlier, so armed with the trusty text-book and a lesson plan I figured under-tens would love, I cruised confidently into the classroom.
I exited an hour later feeling like Joyce Grenfell on Mogadon. My lovely English lesson had swiftly degenerated into an exercise that fell somewhere between crowd control and mayhem. After months of teaching obedient and attentive adults, it was a severe culture shock to be faced with seven cheeky and boistrous kids who started rioting the moment the lesson got exciting or any hint of boredom set in. For the first time since I began teaching English I hovered on the verge of despair. No matter that I had only agreed to take the classes during June, it already felt like a lifetime.
I decided against threatening the miscreants with any form of automatic weapon and turned instead to the internet. Interestingly, my search key-words of "EFL children discipline" produced a hugely popular discussion thread entitled "Spanish children and discipline problems" at the top of the list. I immediately started to feel a bit better.
I began my second class by re-seating the children in a formation less popular with them but a whole lot more popular with me (necessary separation of troublemakers). I then took out a green pen and made ten marks on the whiteboard, which the children counted. I explained that any bad behaviour or speaking in Spanish would result in a mark being erased and if there were none left at the end of the class, none of the children would receive a sticker. There was a shocked silence as they digested this this awful prospect.
My predecessor had been in the habit of giving the children a sticker at the end of each class and I had continued the tradition in my first class, so they know the stickers were available. I had noted their immediate interest and attention when I had produced them, so was reasonably confident my threat would be taken seriously. But even I wasn't prepared for its dramatic effect.
"All the class, no sticker?" asked one. I confirmed that indeed, innocent and guilty alike would leave empty-handed. Peer pressure to behave well was all part of the plan. They could, I pointed out, earn lost marks back if they were super-good. But only SUPER good.
Next we got down to work. This time I was strict about accepting answers only if a hand was up first - on Tuesday, I had allowed a certain amount of calling out, not wanting to quench their youthful enthusiasm. Big mistake.
Tuesday's lesson had been full of lively vocab games and speaking practice brimming with actions and energy - which was all very well, except (as another teacher mentioned casually in the staffroom) you need "coolers" as well as "warmers", or the whole thing becomes less of a lesson and more of a birthday party. Or a war. So the textbooks came out and we sat down in an orderly fashion and started looking at a comic strip together.
I hadn't appreciated the magic of picture books, but the way they all started making that high-pitched grunting noise kids do if they have their hands up and really want to say something made me realise we were on to something here. The heady excitement that greeted my request to tell me about picture number one was unprecedented in my teaching experience.
And so the lesson continued enjoyably - for all of us, I think. The one time I had to wave my board eraser in the direction of the green marks produced such a stern telling off from the culprit's classmates; "No, no! Speak Eengleesh! Eengleesh!" that I didn't have to say another word on the subject. They all politely asked for (and received) an animal sticker (educational, y'see) at the end and trotted cheerily out. I exhaled. Now I was in with a chance of actually teaching them something. At least the odds had shifted in my favour.
I fear a group of sullen and recalcitrant teenagers won't be so easily bribed into good behaviour with animal stickers, but I'll cross that bridge when I come to it. For now, I've awarded myself a seahorse.

depressing things about teaching (no.53)

The lack of initiative, gumption and imagination in some of my kids' classes is quite astounding. (Only in the field of learning English that is - when it comes to cheating at tests, kicking each other under the table or disrupting the class they are incredibly imaginative, if not terribly subtle.)

This week in my kids' classes we have been revising the use of "going to" to express the future (e.g. I am going to play tennis this weekend.) They have already learned this point in class; they have already been tested on it in fact, and set copious amounts of homework on it. It should be relatively easy for them to understand - they have virtually the same expression in Spanish - yo voy a juegar tenis este fin de semana (although that does literally translate as "I go to play tennis this weekend"). However, they still don't quite get it, so I planned a 90 minute lesson to help them revise the area.

We did listening exercises, we did speaking exercises, we put the grammar points up on the board, we did reading exercises and even writing exercises. Up, down, left, right - every way we could use "I'm going to do/go/play/eat/etc" we did. Finally, to end the class I gave them the lyrics to Pink's song "So what" and asked them to fill in the gaps. The gaps - as astute readers might have guessed - were all linked to "going to" constructions.

Eg:
I'm __________ to drink my money,
I'm not going _________ his rent,
_____ going to start a fight

Now, even if you've never heard the song, you could probably guess the words that go in those gaps, and I was hoping the kids would also be able to fill in half the gaps before playing the song - just to make sure I had actually left the phrase "I'm going to pay" on the board along with the grammar rules for forming the future with "to go".

After two plays of the song most of the class had blank sheets and even blanker faces - if they'd written anything it was probably either "go" or "pay" (no "to"). It was fair enough if they didn't understand the song, or if they lost their place in the lyrics, but I just couldn't understand how, after 90 minutes, they didn't have the gumption to take a wild guess that "going" would be followed by "to" and preceeded by either "I'm" or "He's".

Fortunately I'd completed all their report cards the week before, or I might have written some very caustic comments.

The Business Empire Begins...

I am now officially self-employed. For the first time in my life, I am my own business. I quite like it so far - my home is my office and I don't have a boss telling me what time to come in and go home everyday.
That said, I have to keep my clients satisfied, my main one being the language organisation that sorts out my classes. Two of my classes involve an 0830 start on the other side of the city, which involves an 0630 get up time that is a good hour or so earlier than my natural preference. But it's also almost two hours later than the alarm-time for early shifts at my former job, so I console myself with that.
Despite my misgivings about doing the red tape thing at the Social Security office to complete my registration as a freelance English teacher, it was a breeze. I had correctly puzzled out the form, so didn't have to face any awkward questions beyond what I took to mean: "do you have a separate office address?" and "would you like to pay by direct debit?"
Being self-employed in Spain means you pay a base level (you can choose to pay more if you wish) of 244 Euros per month for your social security contributions and 15% income tax. Some of that could be refunded at the end of the year. With my current number of teaching hours it translates as working one week per month for the Social Security office and the other three for myself. I figure three out of four ain't bad.

Of Teaching And Beer

After five days of intensive training with a English teaching company based in Madrid, I sallied forth to the Spanish HQ of one of Europe's largest beer-sellers. My pupils are some of the company's top executives, which felt a tad daunting to begin with. Also, with precisely zero experience in teaching Business English and only a few hours of one-to-one teaching under my belt, I had to throw out the "discuss in pairs" and "compare answers" basis to my CELTA qualification and make some serious modifications. Oh, and there are no textbooks to act as a guide and conveniently provide me with off-the-peg lesson themes and exercises. I have to invent every lesson from scratch.

Given that it takes me around an hour to reach the office where I teach and most of the lessons are individually timetabled at an hour and a half, it's not proving very time-efficient so far. Luckily, the cost of the one-change metro-and-then-a-bus journey works out at 77 cents a time, so at least the travel is cheap. I'm getting lot of reading done on Madrid's public transport and sometimes I even attempt to improve my (slightly better than non-existent, but not much) Spanish. As an added bonus, I haven't yet had anything nicked by Madrid's legendary pick-pockets either - touch wood.

On top of the journey time, the lack of handy teaching materials means it's taking me around two hours to plan each lesson. Tot that up with the travel and it's costing me four hours of time for every hour and a half taught. Not what you'd call breath-takingly effective.

But these aren't complaints. Mainly because at the moment, I'm enjoying both the lessons themselves and the planning process. Fashioning a fully-functioning, interesting and bespoke English language lesson out of nothing actually feels rather creative. Also, I'm well aware that the more material I produce now, the more I can adapt and re-use in the future. As we're in the business world of teaching English, let's call it a time investment. Ah, that feels better already.

Then there are my pupils, who are all very likeable, very attentive, all do their homework and in one case, even give me a lift to the office on Friday mornings. Compared with the ten crazy nine-year-olds Theo does battle with, they're a breeze. And I'm learning all about beer, which just goes to show my students aren't the only ones getting a useful education.

Work

After nearly 9 months without a day job, the first week back as a wage-earner has been as good as a holiday - relaxing and traveling can really take it out of you!! In all seriousness, it has been mildly uncomfortable to have to answer the question (repeatedly asked over the last year) of "What do you?" with "Sod all - I scrounge off my wife's savings" so it feels nice to once again be contributing!

My working week is hardly arduous - 23 teaching hours plus 3 paid preparation hours is as full-time as most teaching jobs get here in Spain. I start work at 4pm in Pueblo Nuevo, a 35 minute Underground ride away, finishing at 10pm except on Friday when we all finish at 7.30pm before a mandatory staff meeting in the nearest tapas bar. I'm teaching all ages from 9 to 13 year olds, teenagers and adult classes of various abilities, seeing each class twice a week for 90 minutes at a time. As some classes share syllabusses this effectively means 9 classes a week, which, with the aid of thoughtfully provided text books, I seem to have got down to about 30 mins preparation time per class. Most of the other teachers have expressed amazement at this: "Plan? What's that?" has been their frequent comment. In time, I too aspire to their level of professionalism!

A quarter of the way through...

One week of our month-long teaching course has gone by and Theo has already presided over three lessons, while I've been in charge of two. We've got loads more to learn, but at this stage we don't seem to be doing too badly and I'm convinced my students almost learned something during my last lesson. It was a close-run thing, anyway.

Apart from the general affability of the students, trainees and tutors, I've had two more pleasant realisations this week:
1. I really like teaching. With a couple of provisos. That the subject is English (I don't think quantum theory would do it for me, somehow. You probably need at least GCSE Physics, which would be a bit of a stumbling block in my case) and the students are adults (I'm quite happy to leave the challenge of trying to teach surly teenagers who're more interested in chewing gum or texting their mates to other people, frankly).
2. I like being back in the classroom as a student myself. If you ask me, further and higher education is wasted on the young. I definitely wouldn't have been so enthusiastic if I had done this course fifteen-odd years ago. Now, even the homework is quite satisfying, in the same way as going for a run or doing a work-out in the gym. It's a bit of a slog and you keep wishing it'll be over soon, but when it is you get a definite feeling of achievement and even, dare I say, a touch of euphoria. Or maybe that's just the relief you naturally feel, say, after overcoming a bout of constipation.

In my short time as a trainee teacher, I've also had a couple of insights about the habits of my own schoolteachers. The obsessive break-time cigarette-smoking and coffee-drinking, for example. Theo and I aren't doing the former at all and my consumption of coffee is so far under control (one con-leche and one contado per day - I could stop any time, honest...) but our fellow trainees are puffing away like the regular Strawberry Line service and I'm sure some of them are mainlining caffeine in the bogs. One thing you don't appreciate when you're a pupil or student is how damn terrifying you and your peers can be to the less experienced pedagog. By the time the teachers are too experienced to feel the fear, their addictions are too far gone to even attempt giving them up. Thus, the delightful ash-tray and coffee-breath cocktail of halitosis that let's you know they're reading your answers over your shoulder, even without looking.

Over-flowing bag syndrome is something I've often wondered about, too. Actually, it would be an exaggeration to say often, but since my initiation into the realm of the schoolroom, I've been frequently reminded of the seemingly endless books, papers and pens carted around by my former teachers, even as my own bulging backpack tips out all over the classroom floor.

So, three more weeks to go and major cock-ups notwithstanding, Theo and I will both be certified. It's a heady prospect.

Let loose on unwitting learners

Theo and I have both completed our first twenty minutes of classroom teaching. It doesn't sound like a lot, but when you have a class of expectant faces in front of you (at least I assume that was the expression. I suppose some of them might have had wind or something) and zero experience at the chalk face (it's a white board nowadays, but that doesn't seem to sound as good) it's a tad daunting. However, Theo and I reckon we both did okay - at least, none of our students nor ourselves felt compelled to run out of the room screaming - whether any actual learning took place is a moot point. Mind you, I think we both learned that it is better to appear fairly relaxed, even if you want to run out of the room screaming, so that's something. Perhaps in the next couple of weeks we may actually manage to teach our pupils to speak some English. Although they appeared to be doing a lot of that without too much assistance on our part, luckily.

But in all seriousness, the fact that we have just spent the last week helping Spaniards improve their English (when we weren't dancing, drinking or telling filthy stories to one another) certainly gave our confidence levels a huge head-start. We both quite enjoyed it, too.

Learning to speak English

Kate and I have been accepted on a CELTA Teaching English as a Foreign Language course in Barcelona, starting November 3rd. So for the past week we've been trying to learn how to speak English!

Luckily we're staying with Kate's mother Cathy this week who is (like my Mum actually) a TEFL teacher, so she's been helping us with our pre-course homework. 6 months on the road without having to work have made this a bit of a culture shock, but Cathy has more or less guided us through the 3rd conditional, phrasal verbs and progressive tenses.

Next week we're off to warm up our language skills a bit more, spending a week in a four star hotel (expenses paid) near Salamanca talking English to Spanish learners on a Pueblo Ingles week. Should get us in the mood.

Then a month in Barcelona, lodging with a German translator, working 9 to 5. Culture shock alert! We're quite excited though.