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.
Thursday, November 23, 2006
Wednesday, November 22, 2006
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.
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.
Tuesday, November 21, 2006
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.
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.
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