Those who can, teach. Those who can't, teach EFL

Twice a week I teach a group of really nice lawyers who are trying to learn enough highly specialized language to pass the brand new fresh-out-of-the-box ILEC examination. It is the first year of this globally recognised test of legal English and my school, the biggest in Portugal, have chosen me to teach it. It is the first school in the country to open the class and I am the sole teacher. I have a true blank canvas to work on. I am in control of what they learn and when. I chose the course book. My director wants me to be ready to give seminars at the end of the year. It will look seriously good on my CV.
I am way out of my depth. As a student asked me today to compare the legal system in Portugal to the common law system in Britain, I completely invented a bogus answer with absolutely no bearing on reality.
I teach them for two hours straight and today I had just ten minutes after my previous class to plan my lesson. Let me reiterate that there are no resources for this course. No "1000 legal games" book and no time-wasting filler activities. In my wisdom, I spent 8 of the 10 minutes on the internet to find out the Liverpool score. (We won. Yay!!.)
I feel a little cheap and sullied by my lack of professionalism and I am convinced that, any day now, someone is going to realise and drag me from a clasroom with cries of "You're not a teacher! You're a fraud!" I am reassured by my colleagues that this feeling will remain with me for the rest of my career.
The mendacity.

Unfortunately, it takes so long to download photos that the only way I can do it is to publish them all at once, leave the computer on and go to bed! By the morning they should have been uploaded. Enjoy.

Bhoys will be bhoys

I am writing this as Celtic have just beat the Mancs in the Champions League. Good work!
On a less pleasing note, I went to see the Benfica-Celtic match in the Stadium of Light (Estadio da Luz) and Celtic were truly appaling. We wont dwell on it - just enjoy the pictures of 15,000 bald, fat Scottish men descending on a city unprepared.
True to form, they were magnificently drunk for a full four days. First in the bar at opening time, last out at kicking out time. There was a discernible atmosphere of hostility about the city for a couple of days before the match, but in general, our friends from the north once again showed the world how to enjoy itself, cause mayhem and drink into oblivion while remaining happy, friendly and surreal.
I felt priviliged to have heard this conversation:
Celtic Fan to ticket seller: D'ya hae nae tickets, fella?
Ticket seller, in perfect English: I'm sorry. Do you speak English? Parlez vous Anglais?
Celtic fan: Course ai speak English, ya wee shite.

Salvation!

Thank Christ! The internet has just arrived in the flat and I can finally find out the footie scores without facing the miserable witch in the internet cafe.
Update: The job has been a mixed bag so far. It's much more work than Japan was. I have to mark homework, set tests and plan my own syllabus etc. It's not the job for teachers straight from the Celta course without experience, as some of my fellow newbies have been finding.
On the other hand, I have much more freedom in class than I did with Nova in Japan. Plus, the class sizes are much bigger here, so the whole dynamic is more fun. It's a lot more responsibility, though. If everybody in my classes fail at the end of the year, there is nobody to hide behind.
I have started Portuguese classes which means that , after two months, my Portuguese is probably better than my Japanese is after a year spent in Japan.
I had never really thought about just how different Japan was when I was there. I just accepted it because I had never lived anywhere else. Now that I am back in Europe, I am finding it comparatively easy to get along. To be a bit teacherish for a mo, the fact that the language shares thousands of words that are English cognates makes it so much easier to teach. The average Portuguese Joao knows about 5000 'English' words before he even has a lesson.

We haven't really done much sight seeing yet. The first month is always a foot-finding exercise, but hopefully we will get to see some of the country while we are here. Portugal is still really old-fashioned (read: inherently racist, mysoginistic and massively patriotic) so there is plenty of old wine-making country to explore. Like everybody's Nan, they have a natural, naive unincumbered gift for the un-PC. The same was true of the Japanese, but I didn't think it would be the same in central Europe.
Teacher: Who makes bread?
Student: The baker.
Teacher: Who cooks food?
Student: The wife!! HA!
Teacher: Who grows crops?
Student: The farmer.
Teacher: Who builds the houses?
Student: The niggers!! (uproarious laughter unsues)
In black and white, this seems outrageous, but it is a million miles from the angry racism we see in Britain and is closer to the attitudes of a different generation. It's still a fairly backward facing country, truth be told.

The flat we found is small but nice. It's really central, but in a traditional, quiet travessa. It's a studio, but we have tried to separate it so that it is divided into different sections. The neighbours seem quietly concerned about the foreigners next door, but their kids play football right outside our front door - safe in the knowledge that I have no idea how to tell them to bugger off! It's really handy for going out. The night life is quite studenty. All of the bars are down little side streets and everybody just drinks in the street. It would be perfect if there weren't so many pickpockets about, forcing you to keep your wits (and your wallet) at hand.
Lisbon is full of cool little bars, good restaurants and pricey boutiques. it also has the fantastic feeling of a small city. Kind of like Liverpool, it is a big city with a small town atmosphere. Everybody knows everybody elses' business and it couldn't feel any less like a capital city. Which is a good thing.

Boa Tarde!

This is going to be a seriously quick blog to let anyone who cares know that I haven't died. We arrived safe and sound in Lisbon two weeks ago. The school seems great and we moved into a new flat yesterday. MUCH more info and pics will follow when the idiotas at PT decide to get round to installing my internet connection (and cable TV! Woo hoo!!)
Told you it would be short!!

One Step Forward...

Two weeks from today I will (hopefully) be arriving in Lisbon. Until now, I haven't really thought too much about it. It might sound strange, but I'm getting used to packing my bag and heading off to live in a country that I know very little about. In fact, I think that is what I like most about this job. Having said that, I am starting to worry a little. For a start, nothing has gone right in the run-up to this. From lost applications to doctor's notes and tax returns, fate seems to have slapped a no entry sign on this one. But we'll persevere. The job sounds great - 25 hours a week with a really competitive salary and plenty of chances for overtime or private students. We haven't found a place to stay yet, but we have lots of promising leads and the prices are good. Anyway, wish me look, because the next month or so is going to be frantic! I'll keep you posted.

Tales from Cow Country

Over the summer, we spent six weeks working as 'counsellors' in a school for foreign kids to learn English. Duties included; 3 hours of English per day, excursions, waking up and putting kids to bed, ensuring that they ate, stopping them from killing each other... you get the idea. It was the most exhausting job I have ever had. You are mother, father, teacher and friend to these little rich kids. A job made more difficult by the fact that most of them seem to lack all of thes things back home. It wasn't all bad, of course. The other teachers were great and lots of the kids were really good fun. It's not a smmer job I would sign up for lightly, but if your'e up for a challenge...

Pictures from Prague

I spent a month in Prague studying for my TEFL certificate. It was really intensive but the people I was on the course with were (mostly!) great. Prague is a really beautiful city, sadly being ruined by the worst kinds of tourists. There are still plenty of places that are worth a visit, though. And the beer is tremendous.

My Year in Pictures

This is the first installment of my Japanese pictures. Things I have leaned; pictures of random, faraway places get cooler the longer it has been since you last looked at them; sometimes you can't actually believe it's you in these pics; there is no explanation for the fact that I only have one picture of Iain, who I worked and drank with every day fo about nine months.

Pic 1. Tetsu, Kyoko, Laura and myself in Gifu for a spot of rowing in one of the few places in Japan where substantial greenery is still viewable. But I'm pretty sure the lake was man-made.
Pic 2. Skiing in Meiho. I call it skiing, but we actually didn't manage it. Posed for a couple of snaps, tried to move forward on skis, fell, took skis off and sat in restaurant. Good day.
Pics 3 and 4. Shinichiro's Bebedor bar in Konan and Kei's "La Calavera" in Inuyama respectively. If I wasn't in one, you could find me in the other. Some truly great times were had in these wonderful places. I'm sure I will see these people again.
Pic 5. Kani kids. If I had more room in my suitcase, I'd have brought them home. They just don't make kids like this where I come from!
Pic 6. This was taken just before we left Japan. Some of the lovely ladies from Kani decided to dress Laura in traditional kimono, which took forever, but looked amazing. I have never seen a piece of clothing that is so intricate and difficult to put on. Yumiko, the lady who dressed Laura, has been studying how to wear kimono for over a decade and still does not consider herself to be an expert. After many photos, we were treated to a feast that verged on Bacchinalian in its' excess! There was enough food to feed an army and the Asahi flowed freely - even though it was barely 10:30 am. Wonderful people!

Bed and Bored

Today I have mostly been relaxing on the couch and recovering from last night. For those of you who are new to my life, get used to this - it happens a lot.
I decided, as all who are lazy do, to write a 'to-do' list. It beats getting up and actually doing the things that you need to do. Here it is;
Organise CD/DVD collection
Fix Laptop
Do Laundry
Go to gym
Learn Portuguese
I failed to accomplish any of the above goals and, as such, have decided to ban myself from ever writing a 'to-do' list again. They are counter productive and serve only to highlight ones own inadequacies. A much better idea is a 'have-done' list, where the writer ticks off anything that they have completed during the day. e.g.
Woke up
Ate something
Didn't go back to bed...
etc.
Try it and bask in the warm glow of a page full of things that you have managed to do. It will make you feel much better then staring at a daunting list of jobs that have yet to be done. Plus, it is a good way to waste some time instead of doing any real work, as is writing a rather pointless blog...

Hajimete

Hello. It's not an original opening, but who am I to fly in the face of convention. Welcome to my blog.
Background;
I am a teacher of English as a foreign language. I have been doing this for about a year and a half. I spent most of this time teaching in Japan, hence random bits of basic Japanese thrown in willy-nilly (or wirry-nirry, if you prefer). The place had a massive effect on me and I hope to return someday.
Since then, I have been to Prague and, most recently, Brighton to teach at a summer camp for rich foreign brats.
In September I head for Lisbon, where I hope to continue in this strange and oft ridiculed career that I have chosen.
I am hoping to use this blog, as many do, to allow friends and family to keep up with me as I travel. It beats sending loads of emails.