I can finally say that the time has come....
...I have made friends here in Germany!
After about 2 months of talking about it, a small group of us from my German course went out for supper last night. Some of the girls had been planning on going to the disco, myself included, but when only 2 of us ended up available, we went out for supper instead. Manau was able to join us for 30 minutes before he went to work, but other than that, it was just Sally and I. One of our peers from the German class opened up an Indian restaurant and so we checked it out. I can't remember the last time I was so full!! Mmmm....Pakora, Masala, Naan, Korma....
And, I have made an instant friend at Berlitz as well! Anja is a sweet German, who is teaching the German Integration course (like the one that I am taking in Krefeld...) at Berlitz in Düsseldorf (where I work). We went to Starbucks for coffee yesterday and ended up talking for almost 2 hours. Ends up we have similar life stories; maybe I am not alone in my issues afterall! ;D
Saturday, February 19, 2011
Thursday, February 17, 2011
Berlitz
I am officially working as a team member of the Berlitz Language Centre in Düsseldorf!
Last week, I had my first 1-on-1 class with an elderly gentleman and this week I have worked with a group of 7 business people and another individual. Sure, I am continually learning the curriculum and interesting ways of introducing the material, but I am ABSOLUTELY loving this job! The clients (students) are very enthusiastic to learn English and are constantly teaching me how complicated language learning is. At the end of a group-work session, I had asked the students to "wrap-up" what they were doing. The response I got was, "Sorry, I don't understand.". Ah! Wrap-up!!! I had used an idiom. Oops. So I had to explain what wrap-up means. Which is good, because that is why Berlitz hires only native language speakers...so we can pass on information that a student wouldn't get from a "regular" classroom teacher.
At times, explaining can be quite difficult, for example:
How do you explain what jealousy is? (only describing it using examples and words)
How do you explain the difference between the verb tenses, "I read a book in the evening." and "I am reading a book."?
Or, "I've got to hand it to you Peter, you've done a great job!".
When we are native speakers of a language, we take for granted the verb tenses, the synonyms, the idioms that we know. It is very interesting to me!
Last week, I had my first 1-on-1 class with an elderly gentleman and this week I have worked with a group of 7 business people and another individual. Sure, I am continually learning the curriculum and interesting ways of introducing the material, but I am ABSOLUTELY loving this job! The clients (students) are very enthusiastic to learn English and are constantly teaching me how complicated language learning is. At the end of a group-work session, I had asked the students to "wrap-up" what they were doing. The response I got was, "Sorry, I don't understand.". Ah! Wrap-up!!! I had used an idiom. Oops. So I had to explain what wrap-up means. Which is good, because that is why Berlitz hires only native language speakers...so we can pass on information that a student wouldn't get from a "regular" classroom teacher.
At times, explaining can be quite difficult, for example:
How do you explain what jealousy is? (only describing it using examples and words)
How do you explain the difference between the verb tenses, "I read a book in the evening." and "I am reading a book."?
Or, "I've got to hand it to you Peter, you've done a great job!".
When we are native speakers of a language, we take for granted the verb tenses, the synonyms, the idioms that we know. It is very interesting to me!