And next year...

So it's the last week of Lines, and now that we have some idea of what we are doing, everything is running smoothly. Just in time for it to finish, as per usual.
And of course, that means it is also the time to start talking about next year. And that happened today. I've been offered the job of Academic Director for next year. That means designing, or at least re-designing, tinkering and improving, the whole academic program for Queenswood for next year. And then running it. Which sounds like fun, now that I have some idea of what I'm doing. And most of the people who are here now running various parts of the school (Centre Manager, Activities Organiser, etc) will be here in similar roles again next year, so we should all know what we're doing. And it's nice when people know what they are doing.
I'd better go do something I know how to do - more of my E-Comm Blog, I think.

An Electronic Communications Course

So now that it's week three, and the summer school seems to be pretty much set up, and everything is running more or less smoothly, I have a little bit of time to do things like write to this blog. I have been on Blogger daily, but working on The Official Lines E-Comm Teachers' Blog.
The first two weeks of the course was a shambles, I have to say. We had 20 teenagers in each computer room with 12 computers for 90 minutes a day (x4 classes). It was a cattle market. Every lesson was a struggle, and neither Kamil (my partner teacher) nor I, nor the students, nor the teachers who had to sit in to 'help' were having fun. It was Not Good.
So we reworked the whole program. Students have 45 minutes a day with the computers and us, and 45 minutes working on planning & correcting their work in the classroom with their own class teachers. This means that we only have a max of 10 students in each computer room at a time, which is far, FAR better. We've had to plan the 'prep' lessons for the class teachers as well of course, but it's worked out ok so far.
We've made it a quite self-directed program. The idea is that the students choose what they want to work on (apart from the blog and class computer dictionary which are compulsory) and work steadily on their own or in small groups, with the language support and corrections coming from their class teacher, and the tech support from us. The blog has a whole lot of 'how to' posts, linked from the sidebar, so they can work out how to do most things themselves. And as for what they learn, the idea is that it's computer stuff, but also communication & language things. Have a look at the side bar of the blog to see the how-to's and the list of projects we've given them to choose from. In fact, the blog has everything. It's pretty much the whole program, online. It's so cool!

ADoS, and a Masters, all in one day.

The stars must have been good for my professional life last Tuesday. First of all, my contract was officially upgraded here at my regular english language school. Since I arrived, I found myself more or less filling a bit of a gap - there was so much to be done, setting up the new campus of the school, and I found myself doing a lot of things above and beyond my lowly teacher's contract, that I was offered (after only slightly heavy hints...) an ADoS contract instead, which is rather nice. Nice because I think I would be doing the work anyway, and this way I get some recognition for it, though only a token more in salary (although I worked out that it sounds a lot better in AU$ than in pounds!).
On the same day, I realised it was probably about time for uni results to come out, so I thought to check, and they were! I'm finished for real and proper! And I got a 7 for the assessment subject! Which I am rather pleased about. And a 6 for the other subject that I did such a crap assignment for, so that's not too bad.
And now I'm off to celebrate surviving the first week here (which has frequently resembled a soap opera, it seems) with a Professional Understanding and Bonding session in the garden at the nearest pub, which is only 20 minutes walk away!