In my free time, more and more I’ve been forgoing complete and comprehensible sentences in favor of gestures, expressions, and nonverbal noises such as the above. My job is talking. My job is forming complete in the most comprehensible way possible. It gets old. Meowing, for instance, is more fun and nearly as effective. At [...]
Posts Tagged ‘teaching’
chiuuuu…
Posted in regular, year 2, tagged teaching, The Bear on Monday 26 January, 2009 | 1 Comment »
disjointed writing ahead
Posted in regular, year 2, tagged English, teaching, work on Tuesday 28 October, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
So, now we have taken care of bedbug problems, contract problems, codice fiscale problems, hospital problems (I STILL need to write that post), and apartment-hunting problems. Now we’re settling into a delightful routine that…involves a 30-hour workweek. 30 hours a week might sound delightfully relaxed to you full-timers, but actually for teachers 20 hours [...]
purring then fuming
Posted in regular, spring, year 1, tagged frustration, irritating, Italian idiosyncracies, students, teaching, work on Monday 26 May, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
(This entry intially titled, “Words that warm a neophyte teacher’s heart”) Today I was nearly nodding off at the end of my 3:30 lesson, so just before my 4:30 lesson started I asked my student if we could start a couple minutes late so I could dash across the street for a cup (read: shot) [...]
update about now
Posted in spring, year 1, tagged friends, roommates, students, teaching on Sunday 25 May, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
So, now having said everything that I have neglected to say in the past month, for the moment I’m doing really, really well. It’s warm here now–getting muggy, and it’s apparently monsoon season because we get spontaneous violent rain every so often, but all in all, life is good. I’ve managed to fill my schedule [...]
come si dice CHEAT
Posted in regular, spring, year 1, tagged cheating, irritating, Italian idiosyncracies, students, teaching, work on Sunday 25 May, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
Okay, the first thing you should know about cheating in Italy is that there is no real word for it, at least not in the academic sense. There’s a word for plagiarism, and for romantic infidelity, but not for the kind that you do on tests. The only word the Italians use is “copiare,” to [...]
the end of April:
Posted in regular, spring, year 1, tagged Dad, home, joy, students, teaching, TEFL, visits, wedding, work on Sunday 25 May, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
It’s been a while since I’ve written anything real here. A month, in fact. April ended thusly: – I went home for Birdy’s wedding about a month ago. The wedding itself was absolutely lovely: the weather were perfect, Jeff and Kathryn were adorable, the reception was fun, and watching my best friend get married wasn’t [...]
the shadow knows…
Posted in humorous, regular, winter, year 1, tagged friends, goodbyes, roommates, students, teaching, work on Thursday 21 February, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
The title has absolutely nothing to do with anything I’m about to write about, but Julia’s listening to a 1938 recording of “The Shadow,” so it seemed like as good a beginning as any. My newest student, Franca, lands in the older percentile of my students, but makes up for it in enthusiasm and energy [...]
hmmm
Posted in photographic, regular, winter, year 1, tagged irritation, knitting, random, roommates, teaching, TEFL, work on Thursday 13 December, 2007 | Leave a Comment »
Bad: – Teaching defining and non-defining relative clauses to an EFL class, even an advanced one. To the Italian grammatical mind there IS no difference between, “The sailors who had cabins below deck all drowned” and “The sailors, who had cabins below deck, all drowned.” Shoot me in the head. – Certain EFL textbooks that [...]
miscellany (what else?)
Posted in autumn, regular, year 1, tagged Bologna, chocolate, Chocolate Festival, Christmas, cold, friends, hot chocolate, roommates, teaching, TEFL, work on Monday 19 November, 2007 | Leave a Comment »
It’s 12:53 am; I teach at 9:00 am tomorrow (today?) and thus have to get up at 7:30; I should be in bed. Unfortunately teaching until 10:30 pm leaves me wide awake for a good couple of hours (I think the double espresso taken at 8:30 in order to make possible has something to do [...]
laryngitis, 50-year-olds who are 10, intensifying adverbs
Posted in autumn, regular, year 1, tagged friends, irritating, language, laryngitis, roommates, students, teaching, TEFL on Thursday 15 November, 2007 | Leave a Comment »
Really, the fact that I haven’t posted on my blog in a long time is a good thing. It means that nothing hilariously (or non-hilariously) disastrous has happened. And it’s true; the last couple of weeks have been fairly normal, whatever that means. It was sunny and warm again briefly, which means that we spent [...]
