Ready for the First Lesson?

So the first three days at EBC have been pretty intense. The first 15 minutes we were there, the instructors told us that we would be teaching our first 2 lessons within the following five days. Impossible, we thought…So it’s been pretty crazy with the teaching method cramming and the lesson planning. They really just throw us out there to sink or swim…strong proponents of instant theory application.

The students are a pretty cool bunch. There are about 25 of us, the large majority being American and others ranging from Australian, English, Scottish, French, to German. We all get along well and like to congregate in the nearby park for lunch.

Suddenly am getting very tired and need to go to bed…

Procrastinating Yet Again

Some things I’ve noticed about Madrid:

1) For some reason, even though the transportation system isn’t that complex, it takes about 5 minutes to get out of every subway station because there are about 4 HUGE escalators every time. Nobody ever takes the stairs, and very few people actually pass on the left side of the escalators to make the journey out of the underground faster.

2) Sometimes the weather forecast doesn’t contain numbers for the temperature, just a map of the country with pictures of suns and clouds and raindrops all over. Not sure how this is informative.

3) People will always say “Hola” to you, even if there are two of them and they are engaged in conversation as you pass by (on the stairs for example).

4) Everybody smokes. You can smoke right next to an old lady in a cafe eating her dessert and she won’t care.

5) Finally, there are NO clocks in the city, at least not where I’ve been. You know how every city usually has a Big Ben kind of tower? Or digital clocks in the subway and on train cars? Or clocks on certain buildings or on sidewalks? Nope, haven’t seen any. I guess the tardiness of the people here are manifested in their urban planning.

Busy-ness

It’s thunderstorming like crazy in Madrid! Even when it rains the city is gorgeous…

I’ve completed my second day of class at the EBC TEFL Training Center and I’m already up to my elbows during late hours with lesson planning. I will be teaching my first practice class this Thursday! (To Madrileños who they’ve apparently pulled from the streets to be our guinea pigs.) “Free English class, step right up! You might learn some English, or.. you might not. Taught by our third-day students.”

Will definitely do more updating when I get some proper sleep.