Latest Update

Well, this is my weekly update. To be honest not a great deal has happened this week. I m working 6 days a week at the moment to try and make some extra money before I depart here sometime in September. I'm still awaiting a contract though from my new boss. He needs to get a move on and get it sent to me! I m sure it'll happen in the next few weeks.

IELTS (International English Language Testing System) is interesting. Not only do you meet some very strange candidates, but the testers are all a bunch of oddballs as well. I had to attend this session of standardisation to make sure all the examiners are on the same page and I was sat next to this guy who was continually fiddling with his phone. I know he'd been at the session most of the day, but it was continual fiddling. What was so important that he couldn't put his phone down for 5 minutes.

Some of the candidates you get are odd too. One guy started telling me about his country and why it was famous, and he couldn't think of it being famous for anything. Another guy rambled on about his remote control car that he got one day as a present. The Egyptian guys are the funniest they go on and on and on. You very rarely need to ask them any questions to keep them going. Mainly they're doctors as well!

I m also getting a bit sick of the inability of certain students to do anything. I ran an activity where they had to describe another person in the class. One guy just copied my example and wrote nothing of his own. Another guy described what everyone was wearing. It's not as if they didn't have any examples to use! It just beggars belief sometimes.

In other news, I have started scanning in all my teaching notes and that should be finished in the next week or so. Not that exciting I know, but I don't want to be carrying loads of paper with me to wherever I go next. I want it all on a flash drive or two.

I also played badminton the other day with my colleague James and unbelievably for once I won. Usually, when I play against Mark he thrashes me, and the other week a young lad of 14 beat me. I m not that bad, but he was very good. Mark almost lost.

Until next time....