Teaching

OK, I don’t know what you are going to learn at the teaching course, but basically I thought it was a load of shite. If you are on the course with a fella called Robert with white hair, rip him to fuck. The guy is the biggest twat in the world. Insist on calling him “Bob”, “Bobby” or my personal favourite, “Bobby Boy Blue”. He won’t be impressed. Also, tell him a load of lies. I told him I’m going to Ecuador cos’ I got my bird up the duff and couldn’t be arsed to stick around and play the father. He was like: “Yeah, okay, I can totally dig what you’re saying man, but it’s cool to be a father too you know”, he’s such a cunt it’s untrue. (Yeah every word is true, also invite him out for a drink and hear his excuses. Also fun is wondering why he was in Italy for 12 years, my personal theory is that he got done for underage sex. Trust me it make sense cos look it the way he never touches and ´pretends´ to pat you on the back. Also hear him go on about how if someone asks you for extra-lessons have a witness, a judge and a lawyer present and a bag of johnnies-sorry only joking)

Cheers for that Tom. All you need to know to teach is that you’re in charge. Don’t take any shit, but don’t bully them either. Being “cool but strict” is a lot harder than it sounds unfortunately. Also, don’t skip through topics dead fast. Take one topic and make it last at least a full lesson. You do actually need to make lesson plans beforehand, but you only need to spend 10 minutes on them. If you’re fucked for ideas, bring in a CD and write the lyrics out missing out about 20 words. Write the words at the bottom of the page in random order and get them to fill in the gaps. This normally takes half an hour to an hour, and it has saved me so much time cos it’s actually a worthwhile exercise. Also, try not to spend more than two consecutive lessons on grammar. This doesn’t mean to spend 24/7 on vocab, cos’ without the grammar they can’t use it. Try to get the class speaking as much as possible, cos’ in Spanish you (Roy Walker accent) “Say what you see, if you see it, say it.”, but in English, you need to learn how to read/ write and then how to listen/ speak. You will get shit scared, but after a month you’ll be sound. If you’re teaching young kids and you just want them to shut the fuck up for a bit, teach them new vocabulary, for example, animals. Draw a load of animals on the board (with the English names) and get them to copy. They’ll spend ages on the drawings, especially if you tell them they can colour in too. That’ll shut the little bastards up for a bit. I’ve used this with animals, food and drinks, clothes, school equipment, places in town, Christmas vocab, and loads of shit. If your class have basic grammar, write about 15 bizarre words on the board, and tell them they have to write a story using 7 or 8 of the words.

One good thing I did learn from the course is that the students will respond 100% better if you know their names.

If you’re lucky, you’ll be able to teach at the Kolping centre. You will hate this for a couple of weeks, but then you will start to love it. This is because you are not helping the teacher, you ARE the teacher. This will do your head in at the start, but you’ll enjoy this place more than the others cos’ you can teach what you want to teach. Also you do get a lot of satisfaction from knowing you’ve taught them everything from scratch. When they can’t even say “hello” when they start, and then they’re writing essays on “what is so good about Ecuador?” you can’t beat knowing “I’ve done that”, know what I mean? The fella who runs it was a bit of a tit at the start. Well no, he was a fucking cock to be honest. He tried to blag us into teaching another class straight after we finished our normal two hour class. No chance pal. After we made it clear that it wasn’t happening, the fella turned alright, and he’s a nice fella now. You’ll probably realise that the students are paying $15, 00 each term, and you’re getting fuck all. It’s true, but let it go; you’re not in it for the money. Oh, and the photocopies are free there.

I hope to God that they don’t make you teach at Riverside. It’s a fucking bitch. If you get told you’re going to Riverside, try and get out of it at the start somehow. And all the lads at Riverside are good at footy as well, so you can’t show off as much. The teachers at Riverside haven’t got a clue what to do with you, and you basically just stand there and read a passage every half an hour or so.

Isabel de Godin is a fucking laugh. The teachers are sound, and they take it in turns to buy you breakfast every day. It’s an all-girls school, with a few lads. As hoped, they all thought that I was fucking fit (hopefully not the lads too). This made classes a lot easier, cos’ they always gave me their full attention and didn’t want to disappoint me. The only bad thing about this is that when I return to England, I’m going to have a massive ego. But hey, I can live with that.

The school in Chambo is hard work. The kids are little bastards, and the teachers aren’t much better. There is no discipline whatsoever and the kids all smell of stale milk. You laugh now, but it honestly will turn your stomach. Also there is a lad who is a couple of years older than the rest, who goes around grabbing all the other lads’ cocks. Hmmm…..

One thing you have to remember is that this is not the same as going to school in England. You can’t just decide that you have a hangover and can’t be arsed. I’ve just got back from having a bit of a bollocking from the coordinator Rocio, cos’ me and my mate Luke have yet to have a week without fucking school off at least once. Don’t worry though; they take enough days off anyway. Seriously, there is at least one holiday every two weeks. Oh yeah, if you can’t understand a student, just say “In English please”, and they’ll probably just walk off, leaving you without hassle.

If you’re the teacher, the students know nothing and you don’t know what to do.

Feel free to change these if you want. There is no set syllabus, but this is what worked for me. Try and use less and less Spanish as the lessons progress.

You should start with the simple present tense (I like chocolate), with basic vocab like clothes, food and stuff. Then progress to the basic past tense (I liked chocolate), all the time teaching irregular verbs like ‘to be’, ‘to go’ and shit. Then progress to the present continuous (I am liking chocolate). They should know a lot of basic vocab now and a few irregular verbs. Then progress to past continuous (I was liking chocolate). They should now be able to write basic stories. Now teach the difference between subject pronouns (I, you, he, she, it, we, and they) and object pronouns (me, you, him, her, it, us, and them). The basic difference is that subjects go before a verb, and objects after. You could do a few exercises where you write out a passage missing out pronouns and getting them to complete it. When they understand this, teach the difference between possessive adjectives (“my, your, his, her, its, our, their” and “mine, yours, his, hers, its, ours, theirs”). Basically, the first set only goes directly before a noun, whereas the second lot are used to describe a noun. There are three tenses for the future. The future simple (I will like chocolate), the future continuous (I will be liking chocolate) and the “going to” (I am going to like chocolate). You should try and teach these three all together to avoid later confusion. You should teach the negative and question forms with each of the tenses. When you’ve taught all of these, give them a table with the same sentence (regular verbs only) in each of the tenses, with the positive, negative and question forms for each tense. This can be used as a reference for them later on. This took me about 4 months for them all to understand perfectly, so then start preparing them for the end of term exam. Give them a couple of practices. I recommend drawing a load of pictures and asking for the meanings. Then you should write a load of sentences and ask them to change the tense. Also write some more sentences incorrectly, and ask them to correct the mistakes. If you find your students understand all this and you’ve still got a load of time before the exam, teach the present perfect (I have liked chocolate). I don’t know how to teach this really, but the other tenses are more important so don’t worry about it too much.

If you find yourself with nothing to do for a lesson, teach the word “fuck”. This is a lot harder than it sounds. For example, it can be used as a verb (John fucked Sue). Also it can be used as an adjective to express enhancement (I’m fucking boss me) or to express anger directly before a noun (shut that fucking door). As well as these, it can be used as a noun (you are a fuck), or part of a noun (you fuckhead). It can also be used in many expressions such as “Fuck off”, “I’m fucked” and “We’re going to fuck you up, dickhead”. After a minute or two of laughter, the students will be genuinely interested.