Teacher Time!

In preparation for our big move this June, Mr. P and I have been racking our brains thinking of ways to augment our humble "going away" fund. It's been years since I've been doing "Bring Czarinna to..." movements since I'm always moving from CDO to Manila and back again. But this one is more exciting I guess since I get to soar the skies farther to get to where I'm headed. One of the things I hope I'd be doing for this season's "Bring Czarinna To Singapura Fund" will be to venture back into the realm of teaching--but this time it'll be online. What's great about teaching online is that A) The lessons are a piece of cake, B) You can do it part time & earn more than your full time job, and C) Lessons can be conducted at the comfort of your own home,

I spent the whole morning reading through the recommended mock lesson materials armed with my sticky notes, highlighter, and pen! I'm getting more OC by the hour, re-reading and planning out topic notes for my session with the online trainer. If I get this right, I'll be well on my way to being Teacher Trinna (what my former students called me back in my 1st job) again. I'm so psyched! 

Preparing for a lesson is like a performance-- I always allow myself an ample amount of time to research my material, internalize it, give it a twist of my own, rehearse, anticipate scenarios, and then execute. It helps a lot that I'm really nitty-gritty when it comes to delivering my materials/spiels that's why when "dooms day" comes, it doesn't turn out so bad. 

EFL (English Flease Lang)

Teaching foreigners is no easy feat. Teaching Filipinos is more difficult. Haha. Well, teaching EFL (English as a foreign language) proves to be quite the challenge as one has to expand his/her imagination to convey cosmic concepts into the most basic of terms. English, albeit it being the universal language, still proves to be complex for many nationalities and individuals.

This is an example of HOW NOT TO SPEAK TO A NON-ENGLISH SPEAKER: 

During a recent trip to Beijing, the gang and I were a bit unsure of our way going to the Summer Palace so we asked a Chinese national in the area.

Me: "Ni hao! May I ask which way it is to the Summer Palace?"
Him: "Uhhh"
Me: "Where is Summer Palace?"
Him: ......
Me: Uhh. Thanks.
Friends: Anobayan! Na nose bleed tuloy! Sana tinanong mo lang "Suh-mer Pa-lace?". 

I swear, up to this day my friends still tease me about it. It gives me a different kind of thrill and terror imagining how my lessons would be like when I get the job. I'm sure it will be a blast exchanging cultural insights with students. On the down side, I think it'll be another test of my patience--especially because everything is online and it is much different than a real one-on-one session.

Oh well, it's about time I get back to work (and to my review in-between). I need all of your fingers crossed so I can pass the session tomorrow!