MORE "ENGLISH" WORDS

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This week was pretty "normal" and laid back. We went to a PD (professional development) training course on Monday in Aylesbury. It was actually quite useful. It was geared towards overseas trained teachers new to the Math teaching profession. We got to sleep in a bit since we live in Aylesbury and didn't have far to go! The rest of the week at the school went by pretty fast. We are always happy when the weekend arrives! Tonight we plan on going out with our housemates for dining and dancing. We're going to a Pad Thai restaurant, followed by some drinks and dancing at a local pub. There may be another teacher from Canada who works at the same school as two of our housemates coming out with us as well. It should be a fun night! 😊 Of course, there is always work to be done on the weekends. We both have marking and lesson planning to do for the upcoming week. We also have the head of the math department and the assistant head teacher of the school coming into our classes for "formal observations." I (Bri) have a bit of a cold and have lost part of my voice, so I hope I'm better for next week!

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Here are some other differences from back home that we've noticed: We haven't seen a single coffee maker. All of the coffee is instant (powder, add water, and stir). Many places serve instant tea, but we do have tea bags at home. Bus drivers carry change for bus fare. Sour cream is called "soured cream." There are no Lucky Charms. 😞 Loaves of bread come thick, medium, or thin sliced. Whole wheat bread is called wholemeal and eggs at food stores are not kept in refridgerators. There are a ton of differnt crisp flavours (potato chips). For example: Sweet Thai Chilli, Sea Salt and Black Peppercorn, Four Cheese and Red Wine. We have not seen Ketchup, Dill Pickle, Sour Cream and Onion, or any other flavour that we have at home. Customer service generally isn't that good. At the restaurants we've been to, we were seated and given a menu, had our order taken and food brought to us. You don't get checked up on and you have to ask for your bill. Shopping centres close during the week by 5:30 pm and on weekends by 6:00 pm. Clothing shops ask if you want to keep the hangers and many food court restaurants charge extra to "eat in" rather than "take out." Food store cashiers sit in comfortable swivel chairs rather than stand up. There are different sizes of grocery carts. The school year starts in September and ends at the end of July. The year is broken up into 3 terms (Autumn, Spring, Summer). The first term goes from September - December and has a half-term one week break at the end of October. Christmas holidays are 2 weeks. The spring term goes from January - beginning of April with a half-term one week break in February. After the spring term is a two week break over Easter. The summer term goes from mid-April - end of July with a half-term one week break at the end of May.

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Here are some new words to add to the "English" dictionary: motorway = highway, dodgy = not quite right (eg. instead of saying "My arm hurts.", you often hear "My arm feels dodgy."), fortnight = two weeks, to let = for rent, fringe = bangs, food store = grocery store, year = grade (eg. grade 7 is called year 7), register = attendance (at te beginning of every class we take "register").

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We'll leave it at that for this week. We hope everything is great at home! Please e-mail us or leave us messages on the blog. We love hearing from you!

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Comments

[Janelle]

Hey!
Hey Guys!! Glad to hear you are having a great time over there. I love reading your blogs! They are always so cool. I would die over there... NO DILL PICKLE CHIPS! although the other flavors seem pretty interesting. Well I will ttyl... love yah!! xoxo

[eddie]

don't we call "food stores" grocery stores here? hmm... maybe i'm part british and don't even know... that would be dodgy.