Celtafication

Happy Birthday to me! (on January 6th) For my birthday dinner I had another Christmas Eve incident of ordering the wrong food that was too spicy. So once again gave it away to a beggar and went and got some good home cooking at a place called the Chiang Mai Saloon that has the best Southwest American food in town. It was delicious and it was the type of place where you can write all over the walls so I wrote myself a birthday wish for all to see. (I forgot to take a picture, though.)

I actually celebrated my birthday a day early because after a three day journey from Laos with the flu I was in need of some relaxation. So I got a massage and a haircut, went shopping, and did a whole lot of nothing. The next day I had an appointment with a doctor to get an X-ray to complete my Australian work visa application. Everything went well and a few days later I got the approval letter to say the visa had been granted. So Australia is now my next official destination (and tonight I just bought my plane ticket to Brisbane for February 11th).

On Sunday afternoon after church I met with my fellow classmates to get a ride out to the school. I've now started the CELTA course (Certificate of English Language Teaching to Adults) and we all paid a little extra to have the room and board included since the classes are held at a garden waterside resort 30 minutes outside of town. My room is a lot better than I normally get when I'm travelling and it's nice to be able to unpack for a month.

This is the classroom where we have classes during the day. There are 11 of us from all different places: USA, Britain, Australia, Canada, Singapore, and China. The two instructors are both from Britain and are experienced teachers.

There are beautiful gardens around the rooms and classrooms that we can study in.

We have our meals all together in the dining room. Most of the meals are foreigner-friendly versions of Northern Thai cuisine.

It's called a waterside resort but before you get Miami in mind the water is actually just a former fishing pond.

These fish have obviously been left alone too long. I like to ask people how much I would have to pay them for them to jump in and swim with the giant monster catfish.

Things are going well in the course. I feel like I'm learning how to see my teaching style from an outside perspective and change things that could be better. In the evenings a van full of local Thais are brought out for free English classes so we can practice on them. So far I've taught three lessons and although I've taught English before it's a little difficult trying to change my teaching style to fit a lower level class.

I had a fellow teacher snap some photos of my lesson tonight on adverbs of frequency (always/sometimes/never).

I have three more weeks in the course and it's intense but informative. I'm glad I decided to do it and it should also help me get a job teaching English to foreigners in Australia. More on that later . . . .