Onder Dil students and Aiesec trainees

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Teaching English as a Foreign Language can be fun if you enjoy it. And I certainly enjoy it!! I love teaching, and I think I am good at it. At first I was scared and to be honest I wasn't sure I could do it! I wasn't sure I could cope with teaching using only English, especially to Elementary groups. The system the school uses is extremely good, and we work in tandem with native Turkish teachers. It works like this: Turkish teachers explain English grammar in Turkish in 1-2 hour classes, and after the break there is a foreign or native English teacher taking over and carrying on with the same topic, but focusing mostly on vocabulary and practical grammar, through exercises, conversation and so on. So it works swimmingly!! The Turkish teachers are very impressed with our English and especially our accent, so we are over the moon! Must I mention that our students adore us? 😊

I love spending time with my students and there are many staying after class, just to chat and practice their language skills. We usually go upstairs in the canteen and chat away until I have to go back to class, as I teach from early morning until evening, with some breaks. I teach on an average 30-33 hours/week and do planning for most of the classes, which means extra work, but I genuinely enjoy it! For Speaking Clubs I don't prepare much, I just need to come up with an interesting topic that will keep my students focused and will make them speak for an hour! Anything from fashion, hobbies, preferences, personal opinions, making sure to avoid religion and politics, which are somehow touchy topics of conversation.

In our spare time we usually hang out with Umut, a lovely Aiesec-er who is in charge with showing us around and helping us get a grasp of the Turkish culture. Also Waldo, the Mexican trainee and Fabian, the German trainee are great fun and sometimes we hang out after classes, go grab a meal after work or party at the weekend.

The sucky part is that I teach on Saturday mornings and am not very keen on it 😞. Onder Dil has a second branch where I work with children and also undergraduate students preparing to become English teachers. That is my Saturday morning programme and so far it's the only bit I cannot come to terms with so easily...

Enjoy the pictures with my students and hanging out with Aiesec trainees here, in lovely Eskisehir!!

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Comments

[chema]

a little help
Hello.. wow I enjoyed reading your blog :) I will be going there during this summer as part of my AIESEC experience; however, I noticed you got to meet a mexican. (Oh I forgot to mention that I'm mexican) :P Is there any chance, in case you do have it, that you could put me in contact with him? I would really like to ask him a lot of things about his experience. Thanks a lot!! :D Chema