Into the belly of the beast

I'm teaching tomorrow. Teaching actual students! I'm trying to keep a lid on my excitement, but this is definitely coupled with more than a slight bit of apprehension and, dare I say it, fear. I know that I've taught real students before, but that was years ago and most of that experience has been lost in the mists of time. This is proper teaching with students who are expecting the best. I don't know whether it helps that I know the students I'm teaching or not. On the plus side, I think I'll be less nervous but on the minus side, I know that I've got a few cheeky ones in there so I fervently hope they don't play me up! I think I'll have to rule with an iron fist if anything like that happens, but, if I'm honest, I don't think that's my style. I've told/warned them that I'll be teaching them on Thursday and that they have to be in school so I hope everyone turns up and doesn't take the opportunity to have a day off.

Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow!

We woke up to a winter wonderland this Monday in Sheffield. It had snowed heavily overnight and the whole city is covered in a cold white blanket. Once we had finished jumping up and down in excitement and planning all the snowball fights and snowmen we could build, we faced our first hurdle - how to get to school. I live up one of Sheffield's many hills so couldn't drive in. The car was stuck under a load of snow and ice. After a desperate search online to see if any buses were running, we put on many layers of clothing and trudged down to wait with the rest of the frozen Sheffielders. We waited for what seemed like an eternity in the cold before the bus struggled along the road and eventually made it to school nearly an hour late to find that all the students were there and waiting for us. It just goes to show how dedicated our students are that they walked through all the bad weather to have English lessons.
 One of our students, Kahlifa, has spent most of his free time sledging since the snow started and gave us some video of his first attempt. Unfortunately, a tree got in his way! He told us that he improved later on and can now happily go down the hill without incident. 

We've got more snow forecast for tomorrow so here's to many snowy days to come!

Do you speak Farsi?

We all had a nice break over Christmas to recharge our batteries for the new year ahead - which was just as well as our first lesson back left me feeling dazed and confused. As part of the TESOL course, there is a section called 'The Unknown Language,' which sounds like we're going on an expedition to the Amazon to track down a member of a remote tribe, but actually, it just means learning a language that is unknown to us. We have a teacher called Artemis in the school who was originally from Iran, so the unknown language on our TESOL course is Farsi. I had been quite excited about the four Farsi lessons we would be taking. It's always nice to learn new skills and I was looking forward to speaking to Artemis in her native tongue.

So we all shuffled into class on Tuesday night, not really knowing what to expect. Personally, I've not studied another language in a classroom setting since I was at school, so I surprised myself by beginning to feel slightly nervous. As this was our first meeting since early December, Artemis greeted us in English and did some housekeeping also, thankfully, in English as if she had tried to explain teaching timetables in Farsi, I don't think any of us would have been where we needed to be! She then changed into Farsi and began the lesson.

T'was the week before Christmas...

...and all through the school (cough, cough) sorry about that, I'll just nip that one in the bud, I think.

We're getting in the Christmas spirit here at A+! Here's a video of our students decorating the tree that was kindly donated by Sue who teaches the TESOL course. The common room now looks very festive and people keep coming into the office and bringing us boxes of chocolates, which is lovely, but we also keep eating them and I've definitely got to go on a diet in the new year! Anyway, there's a lot of eating and drinking and making merry to do before then, so Merry Christmas one and all!

A+ Film and Drama Club

Those of you who attend the school may have noticed a few posters scattered around the common room and classrooms advertising the A+ Film and Drama club. Well, we've been meeting for a couple of weeks now and have produced our first film already! Before we had even started, the students had decided on the characters they wanted to portray and during our first session, we brainstormed ideas for a story we wanted to film using these characters. I then set some homework (yes, homework from an after school club, it just goes to show how dedicated our students are that they actually did it!) to write the script. In our next meeting we read through the script and the students practised their parts. We decided to film it the next day and got most of it done. The students again showed how much they wanted the film to succeed when they volunteered to come in at half past eight the next morning to film the last two scenes. I'm incredibly proud of their performances and the effort they all put in. So here it is, our very first production.

First night nerves

Well, I did it! I taught English for the first time in several years. I'm not going to pretend that it all went well, because that would be a lie. I made mistakes, but the important thing is that I know what they are and will correct them next time.

To recap, we were given our first teaching task to plan a 10 minute lesson in pairs and had to teach it to the rest of the TESOL class. My teaching partner (Anwar) and I had chosen to teach 'how to order food in a restaurant.' We actually planned most of it while we were still at the school - yes, we're clever like that :) - so the next week was spent gathering materials and working out how to deliver the lesson. Anwar found some pictures of food that he forwarded to me and I set about polishing the lesson plan. The level we were aiming at was Elementary so we had to consider the language we used very carefully.

From the Director's Desk

Hello everyone,
Sheffield is very chilly at the moment, it was -1 C this morning and I had to scrape the ice off my car!  It was all worth it though to get to the school and teach the students in the Bronze class.  Thanks to you all for greeting me with a cheerful smile.  I have heard the students practising their new production in the film club and hopefully we should be seeing the fruits of their labour very soon on the blog…  Watch this space….

 I hope everybody has checked out our updated website and our exciting new online courses, learning English from home – wherever that might be!  

Everything here is gearing up for Christmas and we will be closed over the Christmas period from the 22^nd December 2012 to 2^nd January 2013, but before that we will be having our Christmas outing to Sheffield City Hall on 20^th December and our Christmas party for staff and students on 21^st December in the A+ common room.  We’re all looking forward to that.