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cesky krumlov-ing it
we took a day trip seeing as we both have the week off from lessons– half hour bus ride away to beautiful quaint little cesky krumlov. it is basically what would happen if prague was tiny and only old town with winding streets and plenty of cobblestones. alex is lucky enough to have the opportunity to work here, teaching the local primary school kids english once a week! the people are friendly and being there in february on a wednesday morning, it was practically deserted. (off-peak travel really ain’t that bad!) i had visited here six and a half years ago during my first “eastern/central europe” trip– it was the…
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employment
yesterday was a monumental day in the life of “cynthia abroad”, for i have been hired by a language school as an english teacher. as clients come up, they will assign me classes and slowly my open schedule will fill. i have already been assigned a course with an employee at a local firm here that will start the week after next, as this next week is the czech “spring break” holiday. the czechs LOVE skiing and usually plan ski trips for their families to nearby ski resorts in the south of the country or in the austrian alps. i also had my first paying gig last night– first lesson…
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funemployment
i have been unemployed (not by choice) for over three weeks, which is normal from what i hear talking to other past TEFLers. the first two weeks were a blast– it was christmas time! lots of dinners, events, fun things to check out. then week three happened– the week that is bringing plenty of wondering: “where are all the jobs?” “should i stay in prague?” “should i start looking elsewhere?“ the amount of jobs and job related activity in the past five days or so has been close to nil. i have heard the january was the second biggest hiring time of year in prague but you wouldn’t know it.…
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tefl certified
it’s been an intense four weeks but both alex and myself, and our sixteen other peers are TEFL certified now, meaning we are qualified to teach english as a foreign language anywhere in the world. we’ve planned nine class lessons, planned two individual lessons, given two grammar presentations to the class, and the other day, took a grueling grammar examination. we have words like concept checking questions, focus question, lexis, warmer, scene setting, and many more teachery expressions drilled into us every day. the course was rigorous but manageable and i have learned SO much, especially about teaching adults since i have done it so frequently lately. now, we have this…
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merry december!
the first day of december, traditionally a very important day for me. the day i’ve been known to take off of work JUST so i could decorate and put up the tree. the first of december has been no different, even though i am in the land of the czech. alex and i went down the street to check out a fleamarket rumored to be quite awesome. i’ve never actually been to a fleamarket you had to PAY to get into, what the what is with that? i tracked down a small to medium sized fake tree and colorful globe lights as we navigated between the muddy icy puddles in…
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survived the first week of school!
it is friday and alex and i have both survived our first week of our intensive TEFL course! this week has been full of homework, lectures, nerves, and learning how to lesson plan. on only the second day of the course we were expected to teach at least 15 minutes on our own and the fourth day of the course, teach an entire 50 minute lesson on our own, beginning to end. i feel accomplished and glad to be actively working towards some of my goals and dreams. we have officially been here for an entire week and are getting to know our temporary neighborhood of vysocanksa in prague 9.…
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berlin; arrived in prague!
i cannot believe there is less than a week until the american thanksgiving holidays! whoa! just spent approximately the last two weeks in my favorite city, berlin. i spent lots of time showing alex around some interesting historical sites like east side gallery, topographie of terror, and the bernauer strasse wall memorial. eating at my favorite restaurants was a thing to do by itself: thai huong snack: home of the 4 euro huge portion asian noodles with veg and pillowy delicious tofu! also delores california burritos: the restaurant that changed my mind about burritos. other things we did in berlin: ate lots of currywurst, got the flu (me), recovered from the flu, was…
