"OUR" FINAL DAY OF TEACHING AT

INTERNATIONAL HOUSE BCN

Greetings!

What a day.  What a memorable day.

Gary and I both taught our final classes today.  He taught "recycled language" and "job/profession vocabulary" and I taught "writing" and noun quantifiers (too little, very little, plenty of, etc.).

​The morning session was about teaching "little people."  Little people meaning youth between the ages of 3 and 16.  Sophie taught the session and she had us actually do a full lesson that she has 7-10 year olds do.  It kept us awake--miming, acting, writing, reading, etc.  Lots of fun!

Today was also the day that the Cambridge University assessor came to assess the course and our tutors.  We met him after our morning joint session and then later he was to observe students teaching and also observe the tutor.  He decided to come to Liz's class and watch me teach and Sam my classmate teach.  Sam is the young man, from Bournemouth, who sat next to me the first day of class (he's 21) and helped me understand our tutor's accents.  He's been "my carer" as he likes to say, ever since!  Thanks Sam for always being there for me....             In the UK they don't say "caretaker" they say "carer."

The assessor came to the class where we were teaching and it made us both nervous...even though Liz told us to just ignore him and pretend that he wasn't there.....easier said than done.

My lesson went okay--it was challenging.  It was the first time that I've taught writing.  The good news is that the students were engaged and excited and produced a lovely and accurate piece of text about where to eat out in Barcelona.

Gary's lesson went okay too.  He had an difficult student in his class.  She argued with him about the grammar. The good news is that we are done!!!!  Done!!!!!  Done teaching...(other classmates still have to teach on Wednesday and next Monday).

It was bittersweet though.  When we left the building this afternoon we had a sense of relief, accomplishment, and sadness.

Stay warm,

Love Ellie and Gary