“I’m not sure I’m looking forward to Sean’s teaching style,” said Laura. “He’s kind of manic, and I think that’ll annoy me.”
And it was true. Whirlwind! Speedy speedy speedy! We dashed through lots of information about approaches to English Language Teaching, which was rather confusing for me – we were using linguistic jargon that, whilst probably commonplace in the field, left me feeling like I was outside of the party looking in, rather than a part of it. Is a mechanic expected to know the names of the parts of an engine on his first day? “PPP… blah de blah… lexis… waffle waffle…”
Confusing, but not impossible. We worked in groups. We discussed. We summarised. We shared. We struggled to start with, but we got there. Taxing, but within our capacity. Stretching us. Testing us. Pushing us. A heavy lesson, but a good one too. As I left, my head was spinning, but a smile was on my lips.
Showing posts with label seanmcd. Show all posts
Showing posts with label seanmcd. Show all posts
Thursday, 14 October 2010
Friday, 1 October 2010
Did Kath and Laura pass their TESOL interview?
Yes, of course they did! And in their test, they both got the stationary / stationery distinction wrong at first, but then corrected it. Weird!
"You're the third person on the course who's also doing Japanese at Aquinas," Sean said to Laura, "what an odd coincidence." Hardly Sean! We're all friends!
"You're the third person on the course who's also doing Japanese at Aquinas," Sean said to Laura, "what an odd coincidence." Hardly Sean! We're all friends!
Thursday, 30 September 2010
TESOL Interview
"It's not a formal interview... there's just a little test..."
How do you prepare for an interview if you're not even sure what to wear? Kath and Laura and I had practiced some grammar - mostly parts of speech - but we had no idea of the level of the test, nor of the intensity of the interview. Luckily for Kath and Laura, I got to go first...
And it wasn't that bad at all, really. Sean, the tutor, spent a lot of time talking about the course. The assessments seem really interesting - for example, we spend time observing lessons for a language we don't speak (Russian, say), which we then have to write a critical appraisal of. Sean's kind of manic - or was in the interview, at least. But I liked him. He's been to Japan to teach English too. Another information source, that's good.
The interview was simple, pretty much. We talked about why I wanted to do the course, what I thought made a good teacher, and what other languages I knew. Mostly it was Sean getting excited about his subject. Enthusiasm to spare! There was a test, and it was "just a little test" too - correcting some sentences, choosing some spellings, and a short written piece about teaching the differences between two types of English.
Yes, I passed. We start next Thursday. Yahoo!
How do you prepare for an interview if you're not even sure what to wear? Kath and Laura and I had practiced some grammar - mostly parts of speech - but we had no idea of the level of the test, nor of the intensity of the interview. Luckily for Kath and Laura, I got to go first...
And it wasn't that bad at all, really. Sean, the tutor, spent a lot of time talking about the course. The assessments seem really interesting - for example, we spend time observing lessons for a language we don't speak (Russian, say), which we then have to write a critical appraisal of. Sean's kind of manic - or was in the interview, at least. But I liked him. He's been to Japan to teach English too. Another information source, that's good.
The interview was simple, pretty much. We talked about why I wanted to do the course, what I thought made a good teacher, and what other languages I knew. Mostly it was Sean getting excited about his subject. Enthusiasm to spare! There was a test, and it was "just a little test" too - correcting some sentences, choosing some spellings, and a short written piece about teaching the differences between two types of English.
Yes, I passed. We start next Thursday. Yahoo!
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