Training Day

13/08/13

It’s finally happened. Our training has begun and we’re almost real life English teachers! The day began well, my alarm was set to give me plenty of time to get ready and be at training for 10.30am but when I was half way through my shower Rory started banging on the bathroom door. From what I could make out the bathroom had flooded so I hopped out of the shower, quite calmly as this had happened before. However, he had failed to mention that the water from the shower had not only snuck out under the bathroom door but had also flooded the entire apartment. This was a huge pain as we both had to run around with mops trying to usher the water back in to the bathroom. The apartment is fully tiled so hopefully there won’t be any lasting damage!

This set us back but we rushed to headquarters and by the time the elevator had taken us to our floor it was 10.31am. We thought this was pretty good going but apparently not! Despite that slight delay our training got started and it was fairly standard and pretty similar to our CELTA course but rather than forking out wads of cash, we were getting paid to be there. We had the standard introduction to the other teachers, followed by an introduction to Beijing and then our teacher trainer taught a lesson in Russian, to show what it’s like being taught a foreign language. We’d already done something similar in our CELTA classes but it was still interesting as it was geared towards a class of children – the content didn’t seem too challenging but the pace was much quicker than what we’re used to. Teaching children is going to require lots of energy so we’ll see how that works out! 

Training finished at 1.30pm so Rory and I returned to our swimming pool of an apartment. Rory then went to check out a real swimming pool at the nearest gym which greatly excited him and gave me some free time to restring my ukulele. We then headed to the electronics market to find a router so we can get wifi. This was pretty confusing so we went for dinner instead. We went back to the first place we ate and with a little effort ordered our dinner. The main dish was some sort of meat, we’re thinking pork and we got a side of noodles. The pork was great, the noodles were average but at only £3.50 each it was a bargain! We then headed home, did some washing and at Rory’s insistence, began reading Harry Potter... again!  Esther, the bestEST, nicEST, kindEST mother around gave Rory her kindle so at least we don’t have to share... if that makes it any less sad!