My TEFL, tis of thee I sing

The Via Lingua TEFL program - what do we think of when we see these words? Anybody?? Can you try to guess?

HELL??
Yes, that might be a word one would think of.

ANXIETY x10??
Yes, that might be a possible phrase.

FEAR, DREAD, LACK OF SELF CONFIDENCE, SLEEP and FOOD?
Why yes. These too might be possible.


Basically, the last 10 days of my life have been about preparing a lesson plan. I have shoveled more into my brain than I care to ever dig out again, although the point of getting it in there will be to later pull it all out through my ass and teach it to some non-native English speakers, which at that point should be all fine and dandy. But until then...my head hurts!!

But seriously. I think I've lost about 10 pounds. I don't have any food to eat for breakfast in the mornings and my classes go for 12 hours a day, so there's never any time to get any food let alone to eat it. Most of the time, it's just plain inconvenient to eat, with all the work I'm doing. So I don't. Some days, I have to go without showers or sacrifice a portion of the 4-5 hours of sleep I get per night. And that's nothing on the mental anguish of this course. I'm a wreck. I think we all are.


For those of you just tuning in, I'm taking the Via Lingua CTEFL certification course in Granada right now. I've just hit the middle of week 2, and I'm honestly surprised that all the things other ppl told me about how tough these courses were wasn't just bullshit. I thought, "Eh, no problem. I can handle it." But it's kicking all of our asses, and there's even a fellow trainee who might fail (already showing signs of defeat).

But on the positive side, I am learning an incredible amount about how to be a teacher. This is like a crash-course in what all those idiot education majors were doing in college, wasting away their lives teaching at a public school for university credit for an entire year. I'm packing all that into 4 WEEKS, and truly the difference in length of time has no relevance whatsoever when it comes to the quality of the experience. I will not only be a good teacher after this; I'll know I'm a good teacher. Scratch that - I'll know I'm a great teacher.

Anyway, that's just general stuff about how my days have been and where my head is lately. I could go way more into detail, but I'll spare you. I do want to impart that after a very crash-and-burn first lesson in practice teaching, I am now on my third lesson and it's all "clicking" for me. I'm on the verge of a perfect lesson and I can feel it. Only four more lessons to go before I have that piece of paper that will validate the past 5-6 years of my life. World of teaching/dreams coming true, here I come (oh wait, I'm already here).