First TEFL Lesson: Czech!

Phew. Today was indeed a Monday.

My schedule went something like:
7:00 AM: Wake up and do some mild exercise
8:00 AM: Shower/grab breakfast/pack for school
9:00 AM: Catch a tram to school
9:30 AM: Class starts-Teaching Listening
11:00 AM: Break
11:30 AM: Class again-Correcting Errors
1:00 PM: Class over-teachers available to assist with lesson planning
During this break I grabbed a late lunch--potato veggie soup in a bread bowl
3:00 PM: Get back to school to run through lesson plan/gather materials
5:00 PM: EFL class-teach 6 advanced English students
5:45 PM: Observe partner teach second half of class
6:30 PM: Get feedback from observer/receive next lesson assignment
7:00 PM: Get back to flat, take mental break
8:00 PM: Start planning tomorrow's lesson
10:00 PM: Cry from exhaustion
11:00 PM: Get ready for bed/do a quick blog post
12:00 AM: Pass out

A bit of a bug has been going around us TEFLers. Nothing serious, just your run-of-the-mill head cold sort of thing. I think I have it right now though, so I'm not such a happy camper. I wasn't able to sleep very well last night because I was fighting mucus to breath well, so I've been fatigued all day. It didn't help that today was our first full EFL lesson. However, my lesson went very well!

I noticed this summer that when you have a class of students in front of you, all your personal problems go away and you become focused on their learning. Luckily, this principle applied today as I fought through my running nose and droopy eyes to deliver my lesson. Being my first EFL lesson, there were some snags, but it was a great success overall. The students learned and applied new vocabulary terms such as "contagion" and "impregnable" in a hypothetical zombie apocalypse survival scenario. Of course, these were advanced students, so this level of difficulty was appropriate for them.

Tomorrow I'm doing more of a grammar lesson. While I feel really confident with my own grammar knowledge, it will be challenging to introduce these concepts to foreign speakers without going into unnecessary detail. I'm hoping my cold clears up enough for me to get some adequate rest. Speaking of which, I'll try to get some of that now!

-Anthony