Needless to say, it has been a busy past two weeks. I
started a class in downtown San Diego called CELTA training. It stands for
Certification of English Language Training for Adults. It’s a program through
Cambridge University in England. The career of English language training is
huge throughout the world. It looks like after awhile somebody noticed that
there’s a bunch of teachers out there doing all this English language teaching who had no clue what they were doing.
So Cambridge
University collected a whole bunch of research, and came up with this course called
the CELTA. There’s other forms of English language training certification, such
as a TESOL (Teaching of English as a Second Language) or a TOEFL (Teaching of
English as a Foreign Language), but they are a couple of weeks, and can be done
on-line. The CELTA is considered to be top notch and what makes it really
valuable is it requires you to teach. The course involves teaching eight
lessons to English Language learners on areas of vocab, grammar, Language
Function, reading, and listening. Kind of a crash course in how to be a teacher.
The course is held in downtown San Diego, so lucky me, I get to fight traffic everyday. Actually, San Diego traffic is not that bad. At least it moves. There were times in Washington D.C. it didn't.
The class could only have up to 12 people, and we have only eleven. I had thought earlier that there would be some international participants there, and sure enough, I was right. There are only three people from the class who are actually from San Diego. For many others, this was just a nice vacation spot to stop. We spend easily 9 hours a day with each other, so my classmates and I know each other well. It's been only two weeks, and there's two more to go. Here they are:
Forge-a guy in his 40's who grew up in San Diego. He graduated from San Diego State University in civil engineering (and he also started out his college career at UC Davis, my old stomping grounds!) decided he hated it, and somehow got involved in English language teaching. He has been living in Saudi Arabia for the past 20 years. Is married, and has four kids. I thought he was possibly a Mennonite when I first met him because of his long beard, but then he told me he lets it grown out because of living in the Middle East. He is nice, but that engineering personality of his has not gone away. Sometimes when we're working on some linguistic concept, Forge just has to beat the concept TO DEATH! Covering EVERY, POSSIBLE detail. It is downright annoying sometimes. His last name is actually Hammerman. I think his parents sound a little odd personally. Especially one day in class he told us his dad wanted to name his younger brother Jack. Fortunately his mom stepped in and said no.
Malachi-a native of Compton near LA. He is in his 40's. He had a degree in early childhood education and always had a lifelong goal to learn Arabic and got an opportunity to go over and teach English in Saudi Arabia also. A company there gave him a very lucrative offer, and with that he moved his family over. They've been there 16 years, he has five kids, and they absolutely love it.
Ibriham-in his late 20's and early 30's. He grew up here in the US, but has been studying the past 4 years in the Middle East. I'm guessing he has a family background there. The guy is super tall.
Adam-in his 40's, has a Master's degree in something. Lives here in San Diego. He teaches writing at a for profit school called National University. Says he would like to go abroad, but doesn't know when.
Alex-short for Alexandra. She is 20 and from Colorado. Wants to go abroad. Came to San Diego because her brother is out here in the Navy right now. Not sure when she'll go. She currently works in retail back at home. Talks about being a Colorado country girl quite a bit.
Asha-I would say she's in her 50's. The sweetest, nicest, most helpful woman ever. I think she used to live in San Diego for awhile and then moved to Wisconsin where she works for a branch of Kaplan University out there. She is hoping to have more opportunity at work to teach English as a second language to international students they have at the school.
Yoshi-an English teacher from Japan in his late 40's, possibly early 50's. He says he teaches english to middle school and high school students. I asked him why he came to San Diego and he said he had always wanted to learn how to teach English in English. You take your geeky Japanese overachiever who is all work, study, and booksmart, that is him. Sweetest guy ever, but his lesson plans are like 10 pages long versus mine is about a page and half (barely).
Jayjay-I would guess in his early 30's, late 20's. Is originally from Algeria. He set out to teach English as a second language and ended up in Russia. He said quality of life is so much better there, he decided to stay and currently has no other plans to go anywhere else.
Angelica-looks to be in her mid to late 20's and in my opinion, is nothing short of a spoiled brat. Supposedly right now she is an English teacher in Monterey, California. She doesn't hesitate to let the class know she speaks five languages (supposedly), comes to class with make up on, and wears expensive clothes. She is very vocal about she's a Seventh Day Adventist, hence she can't do ANYTHING on Saturday's (okay, I get trying to keep the Sabbath Day Holy), she's divorced (shocker), she used to be a model before she became a teacher, and she supposedly already has a job offer in the works to go to Switzerland. Anybody who's eyebrows are plucked as meticulously as hers I'm pretty sure I wouldn't get along with very well. There's been no animosity between us, but I've worked on keeping my distance from her.
Sasha-sweet, quiet, timid English teacher from St. Petersburg, Russia. Works for the same school Jayjay works at. Apparently Jayjay spoke to the director there that he was going to San Diego to do this class and they decided one of their other teachers should go with him. There was a contest done at the school for an all expense paid trip to come to San Diego and take the course. Sasha won, and as she told me later, she never thought she would. She has a 5 year old daughter at home that she misses. I've been nice and taken Jayjay and her around to see that city. As a result, we have become good friends. Sunday I hope to have her up for dinner to experience some authentic American food and American Apple pie.
My teachers are worthy of another post, so I'll save them for another time.
Life and home though trudges on. In the morning, Mom, Deborah, and myself are off to our respective places. Dad is home while his caretaker comes. I usually leave home a little after 7 and get back around 6 pm. After that I usually have some coursework to do. Mom has been good about not expecting too much from me. Except for the fact that she NEVER makes dinner. Ever! If Deborah or I don't make it, I don't know what they would eat. Seriously, there's been plenty of nights we don't eat dinner till 7 or 8 pm. Oh well, benefits are I don't have to do the dishes. I have two more weeks to go of this course and it has flown. There have been some perks such as I went to go help Mom out in the temple last night. She works there every Thursday and has become the initiatory queen (as she calls it). She's didn't tell me that for the past five years, almost all the names they've had in the initiatories have been Hungarian. The temple staff were happy I knew how to say them and I left them a little pronunciation guide as a future reference.
I will tell you though, the honeymoon is over. Those little irritants about being home are starting to get to me. So in another month, I'm pretty sure I'll be ready to leave.
The course is held in downtown San Diego, so lucky me, I get to fight traffic everyday. Actually, San Diego traffic is not that bad. At least it moves. There were times in Washington D.C. it didn't.
The class could only have up to 12 people, and we have only eleven. I had thought earlier that there would be some international participants there, and sure enough, I was right. There are only three people from the class who are actually from San Diego. For many others, this was just a nice vacation spot to stop. We spend easily 9 hours a day with each other, so my classmates and I know each other well. It's been only two weeks, and there's two more to go. Here they are:
Forge-a guy in his 40's who grew up in San Diego. He graduated from San Diego State University in civil engineering (and he also started out his college career at UC Davis, my old stomping grounds!) decided he hated it, and somehow got involved in English language teaching. He has been living in Saudi Arabia for the past 20 years. Is married, and has four kids. I thought he was possibly a Mennonite when I first met him because of his long beard, but then he told me he lets it grown out because of living in the Middle East. He is nice, but that engineering personality of his has not gone away. Sometimes when we're working on some linguistic concept, Forge just has to beat the concept TO DEATH! Covering EVERY, POSSIBLE detail. It is downright annoying sometimes. His last name is actually Hammerman. I think his parents sound a little odd personally. Especially one day in class he told us his dad wanted to name his younger brother Jack. Fortunately his mom stepped in and said no.
Malachi-a native of Compton near LA. He is in his 40's. He had a degree in early childhood education and always had a lifelong goal to learn Arabic and got an opportunity to go over and teach English in Saudi Arabia also. A company there gave him a very lucrative offer, and with that he moved his family over. They've been there 16 years, he has five kids, and they absolutely love it.
Ibriham-in his late 20's and early 30's. He grew up here in the US, but has been studying the past 4 years in the Middle East. I'm guessing he has a family background there. The guy is super tall.
Adam-in his 40's, has a Master's degree in something. Lives here in San Diego. He teaches writing at a for profit school called National University. Says he would like to go abroad, but doesn't know when.
Alex-short for Alexandra. She is 20 and from Colorado. Wants to go abroad. Came to San Diego because her brother is out here in the Navy right now. Not sure when she'll go. She currently works in retail back at home. Talks about being a Colorado country girl quite a bit.
Asha-I would say she's in her 50's. The sweetest, nicest, most helpful woman ever. I think she used to live in San Diego for awhile and then moved to Wisconsin where she works for a branch of Kaplan University out there. She is hoping to have more opportunity at work to teach English as a second language to international students they have at the school.
Yoshi-an English teacher from Japan in his late 40's, possibly early 50's. He says he teaches english to middle school and high school students. I asked him why he came to San Diego and he said he had always wanted to learn how to teach English in English. You take your geeky Japanese overachiever who is all work, study, and booksmart, that is him. Sweetest guy ever, but his lesson plans are like 10 pages long versus mine is about a page and half (barely).
Jayjay-I would guess in his early 30's, late 20's. Is originally from Algeria. He set out to teach English as a second language and ended up in Russia. He said quality of life is so much better there, he decided to stay and currently has no other plans to go anywhere else.
Angelica-looks to be in her mid to late 20's and in my opinion, is nothing short of a spoiled brat. Supposedly right now she is an English teacher in Monterey, California. She doesn't hesitate to let the class know she speaks five languages (supposedly), comes to class with make up on, and wears expensive clothes. She is very vocal about she's a Seventh Day Adventist, hence she can't do ANYTHING on Saturday's (okay, I get trying to keep the Sabbath Day Holy), she's divorced (shocker), she used to be a model before she became a teacher, and she supposedly already has a job offer in the works to go to Switzerland. Anybody who's eyebrows are plucked as meticulously as hers I'm pretty sure I wouldn't get along with very well. There's been no animosity between us, but I've worked on keeping my distance from her.
Sasha-sweet, quiet, timid English teacher from St. Petersburg, Russia. Works for the same school Jayjay works at. Apparently Jayjay spoke to the director there that he was going to San Diego to do this class and they decided one of their other teachers should go with him. There was a contest done at the school for an all expense paid trip to come to San Diego and take the course. Sasha won, and as she told me later, she never thought she would. She has a 5 year old daughter at home that she misses. I've been nice and taken Jayjay and her around to see that city. As a result, we have become good friends. Sunday I hope to have her up for dinner to experience some authentic American food and American Apple pie.
My teachers are worthy of another post, so I'll save them for another time.
Life and home though trudges on. In the morning, Mom, Deborah, and myself are off to our respective places. Dad is home while his caretaker comes. I usually leave home a little after 7 and get back around 6 pm. After that I usually have some coursework to do. Mom has been good about not expecting too much from me. Except for the fact that she NEVER makes dinner. Ever! If Deborah or I don't make it, I don't know what they would eat. Seriously, there's been plenty of nights we don't eat dinner till 7 or 8 pm. Oh well, benefits are I don't have to do the dishes. I have two more weeks to go of this course and it has flown. There have been some perks such as I went to go help Mom out in the temple last night. She works there every Thursday and has become the initiatory queen (as she calls it). She's didn't tell me that for the past five years, almost all the names they've had in the initiatories have been Hungarian. The temple staff were happy I knew how to say them and I left them a little pronunciation guide as a future reference.
I will tell you though, the honeymoon is over. Those little irritants about being home are starting to get to me. So in another month, I'm pretty sure I'll be ready to leave.
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