Teaching Logistics

A little about teaching. According to my schedule, I have 19.3 hours plus the time it takes to plan 19.3 hours of class. It isn’t a huge load, but it’s plenty to keep me busy. I teach a sales manager at a company called Ratiopharm, a pharmaceutical company. He’s about 40 years old and very businessy, he can’t stand for me to waste a second of his time. It’s a good thing though, I really feel like I can make some progress with him. It’s weird because my roommate, Jake, also teaches him. Jake teaches him on Tue. and Thu. and I teach him on  Mon and Wed. I still fill like I’m impersonating a real teacher, hoping that no one will notice.

            Another class happens to be at Lego, which is fun because the office is filled with Lego things, like a Lego Deathstar. The worst part about it is that it’s in Kladno, which is outside of Prague, about two hour hall from my apartment. I have two classes there, but they’re back to back which is good. The first class is Elementary, which I did not expect to be teaching as a new teacher. It’s usually a job reserved for those who speak Czech, can you imagine teaching someone who knows very little English. Then, my last class is for a sales lady at a huge furniture chain much like Bed, Bath, and Beyond. And those are the basic logistics of it. You'll here a lot more stories and grouse later. 

Pics of Kutna Hora

More pics of Kutna Hora. Above left is just some old guy. Above is the church of Saint Barbara, and left is the Ossuary.

Podcaster Extraordinaire

So, this is the Eerie tea-man Jiri. We are on our way to Kutna Hora to check out the bone church (The Ossuary.) Those stylish glasses you see in fact double as stealth blogging equipment. Jiri order the glasses from the US and they have two small but powerful microphones built in. This is only one of many microphones that he brought along for the trip. Hopefully, a link to the podcast will come along soon. 

It's finally here

So, it took long enough, but here is the blog that I promised to make 5 weeks ago. And an intense 5 weeks it has been. It began with the TEFL course. 5 days a week 9 hours a day we spent in those damn classrooms. What is there to learn about teaching you might ask? Well, I have a hundred pages of notes and handouts on TTT, ETA, STT, T before T, FCE, CPA, yeah the list goes on but I just want to vomit thinking about it so that’s all you get. What does it all mean? Well, it means a lot when you’re teaching in a classroom with 8 students, 4 classmates, and a supervisor judging you. Then, it's the difference b/t a failed lesson, and a successful one. But, what does it mean as a teacher on the streets of Prague, instructing needy businessmen etc, nothing. Absolutely nothing. YEAH, well whatever it got me a job in the city. 

         As you can imagine, there are people here from many diverse backgrounds, ages, and so on. Well no, not really. Were mostly a big group of Americans in our 20's. But, there are chances to mingle outside the norm. And, America is a pretty big country (the entire Czech Republic is about the size of SC.) One of my best friends here is a 35-year-old Czech guy who in a txt to me yesterday referred to himself as the Eerie tea-man Jiri, but we mostly call him Jiri. By the way, my keyboard can’t do it but there is a hacek over the r that makes his name impossible to pronounce. You think the Spanish r is hard to pronounce try the Czech one. To attempt, try the Spanish r and hold it out for a few seconds then try to spray the person closest to you with as much spittle as you can while doing the Spanish r. Yeah, it's lots of fun. Anyway, I will post some pictures of the Eerie tea-man, and hopefully soon a podcast that we made on our way to Kutna Hora. Oh, so you may want to know where the Eerie tea-man stuff comes from. Jiri is an outcast among the Czechs b/c he has done the unthinkable and given up alcohol. Now, he drinks tea, and he drinks it by the truckload. Anyway, one day a few of us went over to his house and drank so much tea that we felt like we were buzzing. He's pretty intense about it. For every pot he makes, he records the angle he poured the water at, the height, the temperature, everything.