Jennifer Patience » Blogroll

TEFL diaries  >  Jennifer Patience

Blogroll

Money

Saturday, February 23rd, 2008

Arrgghhh, it doesn’t help when you are a bit dyslexic with numbers to have to be dealing in the thousands every time you buy something…

Vietnam’s currency is the dong and while you can pay in dollars if you wish, most things are quoted in the local currency. Currently there is around 30,000 dong to the pound and speaking as someone for whom it took a long time to get their head around 2,000 Korean won to the pound and thus being a millionaire every payday, the addition of extra zeros is very difficult. Fortunately the 3X table is an easy one but it still takes a while to process that paying 100,000 in a restaurant is really only around £3 and so there’s no need to gulp in horror at the expense of it all….

The other cool thing is that, like Australia, the newer higher denomination notes here are made of plastic, so a thumbs up for the recycling aspect!

Posted in Hanoi, Blogroll | 2 Comments »

Somewhere to stay…

Friday, February 22nd, 2008

The CELTA course centre in Hanoi doesn’t help you out with finding or recommending accommodation. Fortunately Hanoi is full of hotels and guesthouses that don’t cost the earth so finding somewhere to stay is not really a problem.

The Old Quarter is definitely the most popular place to find a hotel. It’s the tourist centre of the city and every street it seems has at least a couple of hotels on it. I found somewhere to stay in the northern part of the Old Quarter, which now that I know the language school is in the southern part of the city, seems like it’s going to be a good walk every morning and night, but… the hotel owner is really friendly and the room I have is big for one person. I have free internet and breakfast and it feels very safe and secure. The going rate for budget guesthouses seems to be around the $10-15 mark.

The street around the corner from my hotel.
Hang Vai is the street for buying bamboo ladders.

Posted in Pre Course, Hanoi, Blogroll | 1 Comment »

Hello Hanoi! First impressions

Thursday, February 21st, 2008

For all the sadness at leaving Korea, I can’t tell you how how happy I am to be out of the cold weather!! Although Hanoi at this time of year (Feb) isn’t entirely shorts and t-shirt weather, it is soooo much warmer than Bundang. When I arrived, the hotel owner was bundled up in jackets and scarves, complaining how cold it was, while I was feeling overdressed in jeans and a fleece. I’m always the first to complain about the cold, so that made a really refreshing change…

So, safely ensconced in a hotel in the old quarter of town; my new home for the next few weeks or so, I set out to explore…

The first thing that hits you (and you have to be careful to make that a non-literal expression) is the traffic . There are just so many people all out and about on the street at the same time. The roads are packed to bursting with motorcycles, bicyles, cyclos, taxis, cars, people. They truly seem to be the life and soul of Hanoi, everything happens on the street… Ground floor houses for the most part are converted into cafes, shop fronts and businesses. A short walk down the road will involve stepping in and out of the road as you try to dodge the mass of parked motorcycles, and the groups of people sociably gathered to talk, eat, or work on the pavements. Crossing the street takes a bit of nerve at first, but when in Rome… do as the Hanoians do and put your best foot forward. There seems to be a kind of give and take on both sides… if you hold your nerve and calmly keep walking, making it clear which direction you’re going in, the traffic accommodates you and neatly manages to swerve around you at the last moment. It helps that there are less cars than motorbikes, as swerving a car out of a pedestrian’s way is going to cause no end of trouble.

You definitely need to develop some kind of 360 degree owl rotating swivel neck to keep an eye on the road…

Posted in Pre Course, Hanoi, Blogroll | No Comments »

Saying Goodbye

Wednesday, February 20th, 2008

After having already spent a year teaching in Korea in 2005, I returned to Korea from Australia 18 months ago (while I waited to see if I was allowed an Oz visa) and at first taught at a Montessori kindergarten in Suwon. After 6 months, still waiting for a visa, I changed jobs and went to SNFL: Seongnam Foreign Language High School in Bundang. Totally different experiences but I learned so much from both of them. With this kind of job, to be successful you have to be utterly honest; half the battle is gaining the trust of your students. Pre-schoolers aren’t going through any of the angst of teenagers and you know their reaction is intuitive and straightforward. If they like you, they really like you. High school students have a lot going on. They have so much stress from studying and exams, and figuring out their future plans, but if you are honest and show that you respect their ideas and opinions rather than imposing another set of rules on top of everything, that can go a long way to establishing a good relationship.

It’s been great in Korea, I’ve been looked after pretty well. I’ve been lucky with the jobs that I’ve had and the people that I’ve met. I don’t intend coming back, I think I’ve spent enough time here, but you can never say never! It is time to go somewhere else and try something new. That is a huge reason for me to do the CELTA. My teaching experience up til now has been mostly focused around kindergarten - high school. I’ve taught adults, but not to any great extent and it will do me good to get my head around that methodology.

But it is still sad to leave…

Three of my favourite students came to say goodbye..

Left to Right: Jin-Yeop, Me, Ho-Sang and Dong-Jae.

Posted in Korea, Blogroll | 1 Comment »

Why Hanoi?

Tuesday, February 19th, 2008

I applied to do the course in Hanoi. When I was in Australia in 2006 I applied and was accepted onto the course at Latrobe University, but lack of numbers meant they had to postpone it, and my lack of visa meant I had to leave the country unable to take a later course.

I did think about doing the course while I was in Korea and heard that the British Council in Seoul ran it, but again my timing was bad. I popped in one day to enquire only to find out that they had just finished the One Course that they ran per year and would have to wait until the next year to do it.

Once I knew that I would be leaving Korea a whole new area of options opened up, one of them being Vietnam. You can do the course here in Hanoi or Ho Chi Minh city. Same course, just run by different schools - Hanoi’s is through Language Link and International House run the one in HCMC. All the people I spoke to about this recommended Hanoi - not necessarily from experience of doing the course, but for the city.

Other factors came into play also, it was definitely cheaper to take the course here and Vietnam was a country in SE Asia I hadn’t visited yet.

Hanoi sounded like a fascinating place. An interesting mix of colonial French and Asian culture and history. Somewhere that you can get pho from a street stall and then sit in a European style cafe and eat French pastries.  No contest really…   How does it always end up being about food…!

Posted in Pre Course, Hanoi, Questions, CELTA, Blogroll | 2 Comments »

Native teachers goodbye!

Monday, February 18th, 2008

On my last Monday in Korea we went out for lunch together. I wasn’t the only native teacher leaving SNFL: it was a goodbye for three of us. After lots of umming about where to go, we ended up in a Korean restaurant in Jeongja, 5 minutes from Sunae. I’d been there once before when Tiger (Korean teacher) took me for lunch and as you can see from the dishes on the table it was typical Korean style, many many dishes for everyone to share. The really cool thing with this restaurant was they didn’t just bring the food to the table, they brought the table to the table. Everything was laid out, presumably in the kitchen, and then the staff wheeled out a table top and slid it onto the table that was in front of you. It was a great place to go for a goodbye meal as there was a little bit of every Korean dish I liked: fried fish, noodles, spinach, pajeon (a kind of pancake), soups….

Native teachers together!

From left to right: Yoshimi (Japanese teacher who is leaving to go to Russia), Ting Ting & Lili (Chinese teachers), Me, Mario & Josh (English teachers), Guido (German teacher who is off to teach at a university) and Honma (Japanese teacher). Tiger (Korean teacher) is taking the photograph.

Posted in Korea, Blogroll | No Comments »

What is the CELTA?

Monday, February 11th, 2008

Good question. I’ve been asked it a few times since telling people that that’s what I’m doing. CELTA stands for Certificate in English Language Teaching to Adults. It’s organised and accredited by Cambridge ESOL, which is part of Cambridge University, and it is partly due to this that the course is recognised worldwide as a benchmark for ESL training.

It’s not necessary to have done any teaching before taking the course. Neither is it restricted to native English speakers, although there is a tough pre-course test where you need to demonstrate awareness of how English works.   Another reason that CELTA is requested by certain employers, is the certainty they get that the trainee will have had around 6 hours of observed teaching practice. I think this is really useful if you haven’t taught before. It can be nerve wracking stepping into a classroom for your first lesson but if you’ve had a chance to practice and get critique and feedback during your training the more confident you’ll be on your first day. I’m really hoping that the experience I’ve had teaching in Korea will give me something to work from - pick up on any bad habits I’ve developed or reinforce things I do that work well.

The other great thing about CELTA is that, even though is it a Cambridge course, you don’t have to be in the UK to do it!  It can’t be done by distance learning (as some TEFL courses can) because of the practical aspect to it, but if a school overseas is accredited as a CELTA centre you can take the course there.

A great place to start looking, if you are interested in taking the CELTA is http://www.cactustefl.com

They don’t run the courses themselves, rather they act more like an agent: you submit your application through them. There is a good search facility on their website where you can narrow down your search, by course type, country, city etc,. They don’t offer every CELTA course so if your preferred city isn’t listed it doesn’t mean they don’t run a course there.

You can get information straight from the horses mouth here: http://www.cambridgeesol.org/exams/teaching-awards/celta.html

Posted in Questions, CELTA, Blogroll | No Comments »

Post No. 1

Sunday, February 10th, 2008

In 9 days I will be leaving Korea, my home for the last 18 months, and heading off to Vietnam. This last year I’ve been teaching in a foreign language high school and it is the Monday of my last week of classes.

Living and working in Korea has been great. I’ve spent about 2 1/2 years here in total but it is time to move on. Before I left England I did a TEFL cert - an intensive weekend course followed up with a four-part theoretical study - and while it has been incredibly useful, I want to raise my game and my qualifications. That is where I find myself now, about to take the four-week CELTA course in Hanoi.

Everything I’ve heard about the course is that it is Intensive. A Facebook friend of mine is currently doing the course in Europe so I’m eagerly following her progress and hoping she does well. Maybe attempting to keep a daily blog about the course is overestimating my time management skills, but one of my teaching practice books recommends keeping a course journal. I think it should be a good exercise!

Wish me luck!

Posted in CELTA, Blogroll | 2 Comments »