Week One Done.

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Last night, I decided to trust the mosquito netting on my balcony door and sleep with my door open and my air conditioning off. The trust paid off as last night was, by far, one of the best night's sleep I've had in a long time - I'm tempted to say months. Chalk it up to the extreme exhaustion from the week, the change in diet or maybe even that beer by the pool last night, but I slept so hard last night that this morning I had to remind myself where I was. But, I am finally feeling rested -- 6:50am though it be as I'm writing this.

When last I wrote, I'd had the opportunity to explore a piece of Chiang Mai before carrying on to the resort where I'd be studying for the CELTA. As predicted, there has been absolutely no further exploration time. Instead, I've been here at the Assara Devi Resort for 5 days, and already refer to it as "home." It's less about this being the homiest place in the world, and more about this being the place where my routines begin and end. This is one thing that I've mastered, I feel, as a veteran expat: the routine. And that's typically my biggest piece of advice to people leaving home for the first time -- get yourself into a routine as fast as you can. The sooner you have routines established, the sooner you can focus on the new and interesting things that you're experiencing. You won't really see those things until you feel at least a little bit normal. Routines. That skill has come in handy given that my "new and interesting" is a massive workload from the folks at Cambridge. Massive.

I wake up every day around 8 (I'm in bus group 2, thankfully...), shower and have my coffee out on the balcony where I watch the birds play around in the palms. Roosters and morning doves chatter endlessly from about 5am on-wards, so they join in to the play as well. I make sure that I'm dressed and ready by 9 so that all of my last minute organization stuff that goes on (the stuff that takes place while other people at home always seem to have have their hands on doorknobs...) doesn't delay my departure too badly. My group gathers at the front lobby around 9:15 for our 9:20 bus. The first group is at 8:40 every day, and that time difference is substantial.

Anyway, at 9:20 we're carted off to the school's restaurant where we're given a fascinating breakfast every day. Some days it's mushroom soup, some days it's green salad... there are days when cereal-like-stuff is available, and others where baked beans are available... To their credit, there is always coffee, toast and jam, and eggs have been served with almost all of these items. But, breakfast is the meal of the day here that pretty much always makes me say, "huh."

After breakfast, we have about 2 hours for free-study time. This is a lot like referring to the most common swimming stroke as "free-style." There's nothing really free about it. There are so many tasks given to us in any one day that this time is meant to be spent catching up on these. The majority of this time is spent on lesson plans -- whether you are preparing to teach that day or the following day, you're planning. Some of this time is spent on language analysis, some of it is on self-evaluation... but really it's just planning time.

Starting at 11:30 we have our first "input session" (theory class). This is the trainers' opportunity to front-load information about teaching, language, etc. and to demonstrate how these methods actually function. Topics can include things like, "Phonology" or "Classroom Management," but tend to be more like, "Presenting Language through a Text + Language Analysis." Anyway, so that's input session number one each day.

This is followed by lunch at 1pm. Mmmmm. Lunch, by far, has been my favorite meal of every day. They've given us Pad Thai, Pad Si Io (my second favorite Thai dish) and Tom Kha Soup (my first-favorite Thai dish). But, they've also served spaghetti (really good spaghetti), fish and chips... they keep us on our toes! Anyway, lunch is about an hour, so there's not a whole lot of time to do much. However, panicking teachers that have lessons that evening tend to rush to the computer room for a bit of cramming after they've shoveled in food.

Then, it's back to class for one more hour-and-a-half input session followed by feedback. Ah, feedback. Everyone's favorite thing to dread. And, 'tis true, 4pm is the dreadedest of dreadful times. "Feedback and Tutoring" takes place in the early evenings just before teaching time. During this time, we receive feedback from the lesson we taught the night before, and preparation for the following day's lesson OR receive a brief Q&A session for last minute details if we're meant to teach that night. The tutor/trainers here are exceptionally knowledgeable and trustworthy in this field. They all clearly have an extensive amount of experience and expertise in both ELT and teacher-training. So, I should preface by saying that I have never before been so open to feedback. Anyway, our tutors... let me stop and briefly explain this tutor situation:

There are 21 people in this course. 11 in one group, 10 in the other. Each group has 2 tutor/trainers. Our tutor/trainers both run input sessions. During feedback, we're broken down into even smaller groups of about 5-6, and meet with our individual tutor/trainer. This person prepares you for lesson planning in a graded amount of detail (less and less each week) and provides you with your accredited feedback that actually counts (unlike the peer feedback we give each other).

Ok... so following feedback and tutoring, we typically have about 1 hour before "Teaching Practice." Though I've made some pretty dumb teaching mistakes and get as nervous as any other guy, I've actually had a lot of fun with TP. First of all, the Thai students are great people. They embrace the Thai culture of peace and relaxation, and handle everything with a smile. Standing nervously in front of a class, feeling under-prepared and under-qualified, there is no better audience to be looking back at you. They put me immediately at ease and allow me to focus. Second, it's such a completely different approach to teaching than what I'm used to that I feel like I'm learning something.

My tutor asked me the other day why Disney sends so many people down to this program if we're meant to be teaching kids. The A in CELTA, he pointed out, stands for Adults, after all. I still don't really have a firm answer for him. There are certainly other prestigious children's teaching programs out there, and all this is really doing is exposing me to what another life could be like. My answer to him, though, was that regardless of what their intention is, I'm learning loads and internally adapting this toolbox to fit into my own. There are things that I'm already planning on bringing back to my classes that are going to drastically change both the students' and my experience. I've even considered how better to utilize my learning partner based on what I'm doing here - and we don't have learning partners when teaching adults!! So, I don't think Disney is completely bonkers for sending us here, but I think it takes a little bit of individual filtering to really get to the point.

Anyway, after Teaching Practice, we head back to the restaurant for Dinner. This tends to be some kind of deluxe version of familiar food: fancy pork chops, fancy barbecue chicken, fancy Green Curry, things like that. They play it up and have this big presentation for the dinner meal: apples cut to look like roses and things. It's nice to come downstairs to, I'll admit... but sometimes I just want something quick that will sustain me long enough to get me home, if I'm being completely honest.





There's meant to be a bit of exploration this weekend. We're definitely going back to the mall (which is about 7 miles away) and maybe into town (about 10) for dinner this evening. The mall provides school supplies and snacks for late-night cramming... it's the little things in life. Dinner will provide a bit of normalcy for us where, hopefully, we can avoid CELTA as a topic of discussion.

If appealing exploration does happen, I will make a point to post some more photos and things here and on Facebook by the end of this weekend. Otherwise, my run down here explains my lack of intrigue at this stage. Things will be relaxing a little bit later on with Week 3 providing us with several mornings off to settle into final plans and giant assignments due. Until then... wish us luck and I'll be in touch soon!

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Photos

Tuckered Out and Happy
Half of us on the course enjoying some dinner on Day 3.

IH Restaurant
This is where we enjoy our meals 3x a day, 5 days a week.

Lobster Porkchop
Dinner comes out looking glamorous most nights... but that doesn't make it easier to eat it.

Classroom
Most of our lives are spent here.

Study Area
...or here...

Study Area 2
...or here.

Fumigation Day
RIGHT before our very first teaching practice, they decided to fumigate the building. This meant classes were delayed by about 20 minutes, and everyone - students, teachers and CELTA candidates - were stuck in the parking lot for almost an hour.

Lunch :)
Today? Fish & Chips and ice cream... mmmm

Resort Pool
...and thank goodness for it. This helps with a lot of unwinding and talking about something other than CELTA for an hour or two.

Comments

[Joyce]

Thanks!
Thanks for the updates...I really enjoy reading about your experiences, Jessi!!