Good news: Paul got the job and so the decline of education is official! He is a head teacher!
Bad news: a three hour drive from Cardiff to Bristol ensured that they missed the flight!
Our celebrations planned for tonight have therefore had to be ever so slightly cancelled. We only hope that the fall back plan hurriedly devised by Toni of their flying in to Reus might come to fruition. We will wait and see.
Now is the exact time that the little troop of three should have been arriving in the airport. We are waiting for a phone call from Cardiff letting us know what arrangements might have been made.
Meanwhile, to keep my mind off what might have been, perhaps I can digress to what actually happened today. This day was significant in so far as I went on a course. Not in itself of any major importance, but an indication of permanence in the institution in which I am teaching. Getting time off and arranging cover is such a fraught experience in our place that you have to be part of the fabric before they consider the enormous investment of time and effort in getting you off lessons.
This course was on ‘Reading’ as a part of one of the Cambridge exams that we use in the school. The venue of the course was the British Council building in one of the more opulent areas of Barcelona. There were only eight or nine of we participants and the course was led by an intense young man with a determined smile. The course was well planned with practical components and material to use in the classroom later.
A description of my fellow course members might make the membership of the class appear slightly freakish, but I suppose that English as a Foreign Language Teachers are an odd bunch, especially when they are observed out of their native environment. Though, thinking about that there were only three native English speakers of whom one was American and one Welsh and the other had one of those difficult to place accents with only the high volume and slightly nasal quality to let you guess where the melange was first mixed.
The time passed quickly enough with the frenetic nervousness of the course leader transmitting itself to our work rate. The last half hour of the course was in the computer room where we were expected to produce teaching ideas which would be collated and sent to us all via email.
To be fair to the course leader, this evening saw an email from him in my in-box with teaching material but, alas not the stuff which we produced: technological problems prevented his finding the work and sending it out. Some things never change!
Meanwhile tomorrow . . . .
Bad news: a three hour drive from Cardiff to Bristol ensured that they missed the flight!
Our celebrations planned for tonight have therefore had to be ever so slightly cancelled. We only hope that the fall back plan hurriedly devised by Toni of their flying in to Reus might come to fruition. We will wait and see.
Now is the exact time that the little troop of three should have been arriving in the airport. We are waiting for a phone call from Cardiff letting us know what arrangements might have been made.
Meanwhile, to keep my mind off what might have been, perhaps I can digress to what actually happened today. This day was significant in so far as I went on a course. Not in itself of any major importance, but an indication of permanence in the institution in which I am teaching. Getting time off and arranging cover is such a fraught experience in our place that you have to be part of the fabric before they consider the enormous investment of time and effort in getting you off lessons.
This course was on ‘Reading’ as a part of one of the Cambridge exams that we use in the school. The venue of the course was the British Council building in one of the more opulent areas of Barcelona. There were only eight or nine of we participants and the course was led by an intense young man with a determined smile. The course was well planned with practical components and material to use in the classroom later.
A description of my fellow course members might make the membership of the class appear slightly freakish, but I suppose that English as a Foreign Language Teachers are an odd bunch, especially when they are observed out of their native environment. Though, thinking about that there were only three native English speakers of whom one was American and one Welsh and the other had one of those difficult to place accents with only the high volume and slightly nasal quality to let you guess where the melange was first mixed.
The time passed quickly enough with the frenetic nervousness of the course leader transmitting itself to our work rate. The last half hour of the course was in the computer room where we were expected to produce teaching ideas which would be collated and sent to us all via email.
To be fair to the course leader, this evening saw an email from him in my in-box with teaching material but, alas not the stuff which we produced: technological problems prevented his finding the work and sending it out. Some things never change!
Meanwhile tomorrow . . . .
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