Back to Square One

Well, we're down to two weeks of teaching at my elementary school in Budapest. My job for next week is to do "something" with all the leftover kids grades 1-8 possibly in the same classroom because they couldn't go to forest school. Apparently, this is a common trip for most primary school students at the end of their school year.

I wonder if my time here would have been different if it had not been my second year. In a sad way, I'm like my 7th or 8th year students in that I've become a little more lazy and don't put in as much effort as I did in my first year. Had it been my first year, maybe I would have had a better experience. But who's to say? That's like comparing apples to oranges. The country with the city. It's just that there are a lot more bad apples rotting in the city than in the country.

So, I've got one foot out the door in a huge straddle that leaves me teetering over the Atlantic Ocean. The trouble with the teaching abroad lifestyle is that you are usually never grounded anywhere for too long. It means that you have to start at the beginning with a new job every six months or year. But with that, you do carry your experience (see two posts ago)...and some great stories!!

In anticipation for a change of scenery, I've been researching and sending out applications for teaching jobs in South and Central America. I've had two interviews so far.

One went pretty well and was really relaxed. I was talking to Bill from Palatine, Illinois who seemed to be reclined in a tie-dyed beanbag chair while talking to me on Skype from a laptop. He told me to contact them again in the summer when they'd know for sure of job openings.

The other didn't go so well at all, but I did get a great knock upside the head from it. The woman spoke like she was on fast forward on a tape player and reminded me of a somewhat more sugary version of my old department head in my US teaching job. She barely let me get a word in, except for a huge gap of silence in which she asked me "for example, how would you teach the present perfect tense to some businessmen?" I stuttered and told her how I taught it to my 6th-8th years who can barely understand me. She replied with, "ummm yeah you're missing one really important thing...the timeline."

Of course, the timeline! To show where you are now and what you've done when. Which all goes back to my CELTA course. In my course, they taught us how to teach tenses using a timeline.

I'll never forget it now, seeing as I was somewhat humiliated on the phone for pushing it too far back in my memory. It's surprising, because my CELTA course provided the fuel to keep me abroad for two years and more in the future. I wish I could have a refresher course.

Maybe I'll make my own...