a twenty-something girl from Minnesota travels beyond the sea for a year of teaching in Europe









28 September 2010

Happy St. Wenceslas day!

Actually it's not a happy celebration... see, Saint Wenceslas (the patron saint of the Czech Republic) was king, and on this day in 935 his jealous brother, Boleslav, murdered him in order to dethrone him and rule Bohemia.

So it is a national holiday and I didn't have to go to school! In honor of good King Wenceslas a few friends and I hopped a train to nearby Kutna Hora to do some sightseeing outside of the city. Just an hour train ride south east of Prague, Kutna Hora is home to a few cathedrals, a quaint town, and a church with decorations made of thousands of bones leftover from a mass epidemic and a couple of wars hundreds of years ago.

Check out my pictures here!

stop and smell the roses

 



    the rose gardens at Petrin Hill

Petrin Hill

mini Eiffel Tower
No, I have not run away to Paris. Prague has it's own Eiffel Tower-only much, much smaller.

On a beautiful early autumn day my friends Melissa, Matthew and I hiked up (ok, took the funicular) to the top of Petrin Hill for a wonderful view of the city. We did climb the stairs to the top of the mini tour eiffel despite any nauseau or closterphobia, and it was worth it. Here are some pics from the top:



bad blogger remorse

I have been a very bad blogger, and for that I apologize.

Here is a recap of my first full week at IJV:
Monday- 7:30 am company course, followed by 3 hours of teenagers, then after 3 forms of public transportation was at another company giving tests
Tuesday- made a 19 year old girl cry during my class
Wednesday- 3 hours of post secondary students, extra lesson planning
Thursday- substituted for another teacher, got lost in a surprisingly modern office park
Friday- taught all of my students "TGIF"

15 September 2010

Hello, Goodbye, and standardized testing

I started life as an actual teacher on Monday...but then my first class got cancelled...

...so then I re-started life as an actual teacher yesterday with my "first" class at a medical supply company, OZP. There were 6 very kind students eager to start the course again after a 3 month break, only to find that I had to give a standardized test on day 1 to assess their level. After brief introductions and an intense 75 minutes of testing they were very happy to go home and I didn't blame them. After grading them I am happy to see their results and hope that they can indeed move up a level to Upper-Intermediate.

Back at IJV I received a revised schedule and it looks like I have two post-secondary classes which each meet daily for 90 minutes. These classes are composed of 16 (!) students ages 19-21 who need to pass the English exam to get accepted into University. I will be teaching from a regular textbook for the first semester, then doing exam preparation for the Cambridge exams starting after Christmas break.

For the rest of the week I am creating supplemental coversation lesson plans for IJV, saying goodbye to fellow TEFL classmates who are leaving Prague for various reasons, and meeting the rest of the English teaching staff!

06 September 2010

33 Seifertova, Prague 3


We managed the impossible-found an apartment and moved in over the weekend!
I am now in Prague 3, with views of the Russian communications tower and the mini Eiffel Tower from my windows. And I'm only a 7 minute tram ride from work (which starts today!)

More picturs to come when I get time to clean the bathroom and kitchen...

05 September 2010

03 September 2010

Successful lesson: "a hot mess"

On a completely non-school related note, I am happy to say that the phrase "a hot mess" has been successfully taught to our British teachers, Slovak and Dutch friends. Thanks to Matthew, the phrase was intoduced to explain a person whose life seems to be all over the place. We then explained the different functions of the phrase to mean someone who is wearing a terrible outfit with equally bad make up, or someone who has clearly not showered/looked in the mirror for a long period of time.

Our British teacher, Dan, used it in correct context yesterday during class (proud teaching moment!) and my Slovak friend, Zuzana, just used it to describe our other Slovak friend, Tatiana, who is indeed a hot mess at the moment.

last day of TEFL!

I cannot believe that the four weeks have passed so quickly, but today I am teaching my last lesson as a TEFL student.

To celebrate, everyone receives their certificate at the end of the day with a champagne toast... or 5.

I am very happy to have survived the course and that I start day one of work on Monday morning!

Hopefully I will hear back`about the dream apartment I saw last night and will be moving this weekend.. hopefully :)