One step forward

The good news is that I have just passed Threshold 3 on my TEFL course. It was hard work with the added stress that you only get three attempts. I passed on my second attempt. The tutor needed me to revisit four of the questions and think about them again, which obviously I did.

So onwards as I only have 30 days left to finish the course.

Of course this is something I'll have to refer to regularly

One step back. I didn't get offered the job in Shanghai. Don't know the details yet. I'm a bit suspicious that they thought I was applying for a social science post. I'll have to wait till the agent is back at work. But that hasn't stopped me from applying for other work in China.

School in Shanghai

Today I had an interview, via skype, with a school in Shanghai, this is it

Its the Jin Cai School in Shanghai

This is the International School - which, if I get the job, is where I'll be

Heres some more information

Shanghai Jin Cai High School is funded by a compatriot from Taipei, China, is an innovative and progressive key public boarding school, run by Shanghai Municipal government.  Jin Cai High School, located in the Pudong New Area of Shanghai, covers a vast area of 130, 000 square meters. The campus boasts with simple and elegant buildings and a clean and park-like setting.

             

 Up to today, around 1,800 students study in Jin Cai High School., including local students from Shanghai and other 22 provinces and cities, and those international students from 15 countries and regions.

 The principal of Jin Cai High School was appointed by Shanghai Municipal Education Commission. Under the leadership of the principal, Jin Cai High School has already achieved a good performance, not only in education but also in administration, which has won the school nation-wide reputation. The speed and the efficiency of the school’ s development, in a way, is a wonder in Shanghai education field. In the year of 1999, Jin Cai High School was one of the first schools which passed the program moderation and became a Shanghai Experimental Model High School. In 2000, Jin Cai High School was named a National Green School (a title for an environment-protection model school). In 2002, Jin Cai High School received the officials from World Expo Bureau for the Shanghai’s bid for the 2010 Expo and became the focus of national and international attention. The graduates college enrollment rate, including the students from the International Division, is as high as 98 percent.

                 

The goal of the International Division of Jin Cai High School is to provide students with the best possible education and to create an enjoyable environment where students of all nations can work and learn together. The new campus of the International Division, which covers an area of 30,000 square meters, was finished in the year of 2003. That’s one of the important reasons why our international division enjoys greater potential to develop further. We are sure that it will be the paradise for overseas students to learn Chinese culture and develop all-around.

              (Source: Shanghai Jin Cai High School)

Exciting huh?

This is getting real.....

So tomorrow at 8am (15:00 China time) I am being 'interviewed' by a school in Shanghai

These are the details:

Interview time/date (China time)

1500 – 1700 Thursday 21st April 2011

Interview method: Skype preferred, mobile back up.

School: international department of Jincai High School 进才中学国际部

Website:  http://www.jincai.sh.cn/po/ (Chinese only)  Their international department has a separate English site but the pages have no content http://www.jincai.sh.cn/po/.  From the menu bar, you can see the programmes within ‘junior high’.

Teacher:  Mr Wu and one of their foreign teachers (not yet named)

Contact number: xxxxxxx

Skype ID: xxxxxxxx

Teaching subject: English and TOEFL exam preparation

Student age: 15-18 years old

Classes: 2-4  

Class size: up to 20  

Teaching hours: 20-24 hours per week

Note you will be teaching Chinese senior high school students, equivalent to sixth form in the UK.  This is intermediate level, but feel free to discuss with your TEFL teacher.  If you have specific evaluation criteria let me know.

So now its getting real.....

At work, Im feeling like I am now on borrowed time, my motivation level is zero, im findiing it a struggle to get even the basic tasks done.

But look I got my certificate  for doing my weekend course

Teaching Practice

Catching up with the good news.

Firstly this weekend I did the 'residential' 20hr teaching practice course. It was really good. There were 12 of us and it was good to meet with others who wanted to get abroad and teach English.

The group was a mixed bag. I was the oldest (natch) and I guess 'students' were the majority. But there was a guy from MarJons college (Hi Mark) who, like me, was fed up with what he was doing (IT I think), a person who had done a PGCE but never taught and now lived in Germany, a Czech woman that had travelled a lot - so a mixed bag.

We had lots of fun, although it was pretty intense at times. We did 9 till 8 on Saturday and 9 till 6 Sunday so it was knackering too. But the good news is we all passed the teaching part of it.

So now I really need to get my head back into the rest of the online course.

The other news is I have had a 'yes' off my director re my voluntary redundancy - so it is going to happen. Good! Because I have really lost motivation at work. I just want it to stop.

I realised over the weekend how much I missed teaching. And if the classrooms are that much fun, then what the hell have I been doing sat in an office for the last 11 yrs?

On the China side I'm expecting to do a SKype interview with a school in Shanghai sometime this week. Although they may want me' to teach A'Level which may be beyond me at the moment. The tutor on the weekend said we should be aiming to start with intermediate teaching. So I'll have to wait and see what they say.

That's all for now.

PS. The pic is mine from my teaching practice - teaching emotions.

Robbing bastards.

It's been a few weeks now since I last blogged. I'm not sure that you want to read about me succeeding in all the grammar tests. To be honest the grammar part has been hard. You have to get 75% or more on each test and I have to admit on the pure grammar tests I have failed to make that on a couple of occasions. I also have to admit I have also at times had to resort to inspired guesswork. I really do need to do more book learning. The actual course materials are just not enough.

Anyway I am now at the next written test where a human actually marks it. I was going to do it this week but have had flu.

In other news I am being considered by a school in shanghai for a September start so that's exciting.

More practically I have had the house valued by 3 estate agents. Honestly I am not impressed. I have a two bedroom masionette. It two floors (ground and first floor) in an Edwardian town house so I have high ceilings and lots of space and a largish garden. The first agent valued it at 130k. The two others at 100 and 85/90k. How can there be that disparity? I think the last two just want quick sales to keep their businesses turning over during these slack times

More later.

Moving forward, English and No Mattress - not taking it lying down!

Its been about a week since I last wrote on the blog. And things move forward.

Ive not heard much about my approach to my employer about voluntary redundancy. I m waiting for HR to get back to me so I'm in limbo a bit about it. I should play it a bit cagey I suppose, but I'm such a blabber mouth I have told quite a few people. I need to shut up cos it could cost me a settlement if I don't get offered it.

I've been good and started doing my TEFL course, Ive done two of the online tests and passed those and have done my first written assignment which goes off to a tutor for assessment - yes a real human being looks at the work.  I passed that also. I was a bit nervous, its been a while since I was a 'student' of any sort. It wasn't that hard, basically asking about teaching methods, I'm more nervous about when we get to the actual grammar bits of the course.

I have started on the grammar module and am learning (for the first time in my life) all about nouns and pronouns and verbs and tenses and stuff like that. It sounds pretty straight forward but I can hear myself tutoring undergraduate sociology students about their poor grammar and badly structured essays. Telling them that verbally 'we are all expert English users and that all one has to do is read the work out aloud to find out where they were going wrong'. Hmmmm. Actually having to learn the nuts and bolts for real is a bit scary to me - I feel a bit like I feel about mathematics, really never grasping the main principles.

Its also surprising how many people seem to know people who are working as English teachers or have worked as English teachers in China. I have, in the last week, been given two email addresses of people. One off my uncle who knows someone teaching in China, I have contacted them. There is also, via a guy I chat to when dog walking, a guy who lives in France, who has a Chinese wife, who works on a Chinese TV news programme and who I am told will be a good contact.

Not put the house on the market, but am going to start putting my goods and chattels on eBay, cos they all need to go, I'm not storing stuff. I'm not actually 'emotionally attached' to stuff so I don't mind it going. All I'll keep is my personal/historical stuff - snapshots (from the olden days before digital), papers stuff like that - all the rest can go.

I'm currently debating whether or not its worth buying a mattress. For reasons to complicated to go into my mattress is now being used by a paying lodger and I'm using my settee. The settee is quite comfortable actually and I'm sleeping quite well. But is it worth buying a mattress, most of them seem to be over £150 and that's only for a cheap one.  I don't really want to contemplate buying or acquiring a secondhand one. I know we use hotel beds without a blink - but every night? I don't know.

Out of the mouth of babes...

So yesterday I had driven to Bristol to go into a school to carry out two focus groups for work. En route home I had to go via Okehampton to pick up my daughter and her grandmother to bring them to Plymouth where her mum was showing in an art show.

Anyway, the discussion in the front of the car turned to China and the TEFL course I had registered on. In an earlier blog I had mentioned that I was a bit worried that I didn't really know much about grammar and I said in the blog that I couldn't actually remember being taught grammar at school.

I had mentioned this to the head of science at the school I was at over a cup of tea in the staff room earlier that day. He told me that he had had the same experience and in the 1960's teaching grammar was out of fashion. He said that it had driven his mum barmy and she had been constantly on at his school about it.

So that had solved the mystery of my lack of knowledge about grammar. I was thinking that either the school was crap or I had been spectacularly dim. It was strange because I could remember being good at English, especially with my writing, being told I had a 'good imagination' (and that's what comes of being a reader I believe). (I guess my parents were not that bothered)

So with that mystery solved I was recounting the story to grandmum who was sitting in the front of the car with me. The story then moved on to discussing bits of grammar like nouns, verbs etc. I mentioned that I didn't know much about them and in fact had only just found out about things like the past participle and the gerund.

Then out of the back of the car came. 'Daddy are you talking about a 'gerund'?' she's says correcting my pronunciation of the word. I say 'yes' in a surprised manner. Daughter then goes on to explain to the amazed adults in the front of the car what a gerund is and how it is used.

Daughter is 12.

Who says British education is crap?