Saturday, June 11, 2016

CELTA Course, Day 14 - 16 (8-10. June)

Yeap, this is how you know you're busy: you were going to keep a daily diary of what's going on in the CELTA course, only to find out that you haven't posted anything in 3 (now 4) days.
Really sorry, everyone. Let me try to remember what I did . . .

8. June (Wednesday)
This was the day we had our private 1-to-1 in-depth feedback from our tutors. This was when our tutor would tell us how we were doing, what we needed to do to improve, point out anything we needed to have pointed out to us, the works.
Basically, I'm going to pass; the question is which "pass" will I get? 
Job-wise, it doesn't matter which pass you get, as long as you pass--and it's backed by Cambridge University. But one finds it difficult to subdue the privilege of having bragging rights.
If I can improve my set-ups, monitoring, and the like, then I can get a Pass B (just below Pass A--reserved for the elite. Most trainees get a Pass). I have 1 more week--2 more lessons--to rise to the occasion and prove myself.
That was it! The rest of the day was free to work on/plan our next lessons or whatever.


9. June (Thursday)
The 1st class I monitored (as usual). The 2nd class I taught unobserved. Since we just had an input session on how to teach writing--and I don't have any writing classes--I decided to plan my unobserved as a simple writing class. It worked, but there were definitely areas for improvement. Since this was my 1st time teaching writing through the CELTA method, I think it went well.

Thanks to the extra time on Wednesday, I had a nice head-start on planning my lesson for Friday. I had to tweak quite a few things, but I was able to finish preparing everything. Only 1 minor setback. I finished typing out my procedure, and I was going to save it on top of my older file of the same document (which I've done all the other times before). What happened? I saved the older version on top of the newer. 
Oh man, . . . So I had to do most of it all over again. At least I knew what I was going to do.


10. June (Friday)
We taught our lessons (and they went pretty well). The only difference was that we had an assessor coming from International House Prague to assess how the course is going (if it's upholding the Cambridge CELTA standards or not and such). Basically, the assessor was there to assess our tutors. It was a little unusual having the assessor observe my class and another fellow trainee's class. I kinda knew my class was going to have this guest, but that was by some kind of intuition.

After lunch, we had a private meeting with the assessor, where she asked us what we thought of the course; if there was anything that was going well, anything that could be changed, if we had any other questions, etc. It was short and painless.

After the last input session, we 5 went out to celebrate a fellow trainee's birthday: dinner at a Mexican restaurant (I wouldn't really recommend it unless you were desperate for a Mexican food fix), and another escape room. This time, we were not in a freak-show, but in a murder scene. We actually managed to escape in 45 minutes (we had 60 min.)! Go, team! To celebrate, they had ice cream, and I just had tea (wasn't personally in the mood for ice cream).

Yay! All caught up! Just need to work on the final assignment, due Monday morning. It would be wise if I could get a good head-start with Tuesday's lesson. If I get that far, maybe take a look at my final lesson on Thursday.

Just 1 more week to go! Monday - Thursday, Thursday being the last day of the course.

Shew, the last day of the course already?!


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