Class - Day 3 (Week I)

Yes, I am going to start each entry talking about the weather. It is a subject even the Irish discuss often so it is not so unusual that I am equally interested in the weather status or even more so since the cold makes me particularly unhappy. Today was a rather cold and dreary one so my mood was not as chipper as usual. I am making an effort to not let it effect me but today I sort of lost the battle on that one and would have flown off to sunny Spain if it had just been possible.

As for class, it's getting increasingly more difficult but my fellow students and I are banding together to keep us all on track. It's a really great group of people and we are all very encouraging to one another. Here's a picture of our afternoon teacher, Karen and Owen, one of my fellow students, in the classroom where we spend most of our day. Nice big windows help make it feel airy and insure we don't fall asleep (not that we really would.)

The school day began with us all splitting into groups and observing an actually English as a second language class. What makes the Galway Language School so impressive is that every day there are multiple classes going on with foreign students who have flown in from all around Europe, Asia, Russia and the Middle East just to take intensive one and two week classes in English. And since we are in the school to learn to teach English we are required to observe several of these intensives. It was so interesting to see exactly what we will be doing once we complete the course and to see it with actual students learning the language. The class I had the pleasure of observing has students from Germany, Spain, Saudi Arabia, Switzerland and China. Some of them are here for only one week and others for two.

I enjoyed speaking with a couple from Germany who also brought their daughter with them but she was more advanced so she was in another class. Frank and Jan live in Berlin and just came for a week of education vacationing. I also had the pleasure of talking with a Spanish man from Valencia who is an orthopedist in his country and just wanted to spend a week working on his English. Watching the class process did get me a little excited about the idea of teaching. These students were all so excited to be learning and clearly their teacher, Karen is making a positive difference in their lives. It’s so funny to think that some people actually choose to take an English course for their weeks vacation, but it’s inspiring to know they do.

After the observation we had an intensive afternoon working on a lesson plan because we have our first teaching session tomorrow. We also focused on preparing questions to ask during an interview with one of the foreign students we met today. I chose Lars from Germany to interview. He's a very sweet 16 year old boy who came over for two weeks with a friend of his to study English.

The whole day seemed to last forever and I was truly exhausted when I left at 5:30pm. I'm extremely anxious, like all my classmates, about teaching tomorrow, but I know we'll all get through it and do just fine.