March 7, 2010

  • Domenica di nuovo?

    Sunday again already...I honestly don't know where the days and weeks are going. Everything seems to be flying past! Not in a bad way, just in the kind of way where everything is going along nicely.

    Although I still have to find a school for next year, I'm feeling happy knowing that I'm staying here another year. I'm just assuming that I will find one, somewhere. I think in the past the thing about staying only a year in a place is that it's so frustrating...just when you are feeling really settled, you know the place, are starting to make proper friends etc, you have to up sticks and do it all again. That's what I don't want to have to do this time. I'm determined that I will find somewhere, and then I can think about where to live next year as well (although I may just stay here, there are reasons why I may prefer to move).

    Some people are on the case for me... my tutor at the school I work at is keeping an ear out for people. She already introduced me to a teacher at a good private school. The teacher took all my details and said she would let me know. They already have a madrelingua but she said you never know, and they are possibly opening a Liceo Linguistico soon. I'm not expecting anything to come of it, but you do never know, and networking is famously the most important thing here...
    My tutor has also given my number to someone in a private school (of the same sort I'm working in now, only private) in a small place outside Brescia who actually NEED a madrelingua. The only problem is that it's quite far from Brescia and I don't have a car, so it would be tricky. Most schools do already have people, but then you never know how long they are going to stay etc etc, so it could be that there are places opening up. Just gotta keep my ear to the ground!

    I was very excited last week because I got to go to an OUP presentation of the coursebook Headway. It's the book they use at school (in their other lessons, not generally with me) and also the book we are being trained to use on the CELTA course. It was a presentation about the digital version, with a talk on "Technology and Teaching". It was fascinating because it really fitted in to the CELTA course. The best bit was that we got a free goodie bag: a nice OUP canvas bag, a free copy of Headway Digital Pre-Int level (very very useful), a free copy of the Oxford Learner's Thesaurus and an OUP CD carry case (very useful for all the coursebook CDs that cause the books to bend awkwardly otherwise). I was possibly the most excited person in the room!!! It was also nice to hear a bit of British English being spoken..... and to know what he was talking about when he was talking about Marmite and the "love it or hate it" campaign...

    I haven't been on a trip this weekend. Typically after having decided not to because the weather wasn't great, it was then a gorgeously sunny day yesterday. I wandered around Brescia a bit instead, but otherwise just got well ahead with lesson planning. I think I'm basically done up to Easter now which is fab. Always a few bits to consolidate, but I feel happy that I'm ahead. I've also submitted my second CLIL assignment and the first CELTA one so those are two less things to worry about! I found the CLIL one fascinating because it reflected a lot of the concepts we studied in 4th year in the Language Contact module. Lots of words cropped up that I wouldn't have had a clue what they were talking about if I hadn't done that! I do love it when things fit together and it seems like there's a point to having studied things!