Interviewing Schools.

So I've interviewed a few schools for jobs lately. I know I should say 'I've been interviewed' but I really feel it's the other way around. I know this sounds conceited but I also think 5 years of varied experience and a masters degree have earned me the right to a little conceit. I have had a reply and interview offer from every school I sent my resume to, I think (except the university, but I didn't really expect to get a course lecturer position - and knowing the speed universities work at, I'll probably get a reply about when I'm ready to leave Montreal). Every interview I've had, I have been offered the job (I've always interviewed well, so this has been happening for a while). So the interviews have become more about me tactfully finding out the pay and conditions, and then deciding if I want to work for them or not. And most often, it has been 'not'.
The pay here is some of the worst I've seen. It seems to start at $13 an hour. I think minimum wage is $9. The lowest I've been offered is $16. The job I have so far accepted (which might not be 'THE job' as I'm still going to interviews) is $21, which is the best I've so far encountered. And they seem to be going to offer me enough hours. Living here is pretty cheap, and my lifestyle is, as always rather economical, so I've worked out that I only have to work 3 days a week to live quite comfortably. And I've been offered three days with the school I'm already doing a few hours for, so it looks like I'll have 4 day weekends! Which is nice! And I can do relief and one-off courses on Mondays and Fridays for extra pocketmoney, if I like.
I do, however, have an interview this week for a possible part-time management job at a school. I like the sound of this. I like management! And part time management means I might still be able to teach a few classes, which is the sort of balance I've been wanting for a while now.

I do find it a little depressing to realise that, although I became an ESL teacher 5 and a half years ago purely for the purpose of travelling, the best job I've ever had, and the best pay I'm likely to find, is in my own home town. I'm beginning to think I should start working a few months every year at one of the universities in Brisbane for the money, and just travel part of each year. It could be a rather enjoyable lifestyle, I think!
But anyway, providing my current available cash survives until one of these schools actually pay me, it looks like I won't starve to death here, and will survive quite nicely until June, when I'm heading back to Europe and my summer job. And who knows what after!

See! It's Official!

Only six months after I graduate, and I finally get to set eyes on my Masters diploma. Or at least, on a scanned copy of it. I really do wish QUT would make their certificates a nice, portable A4 size, like my UQ undergrad one. The table-sized QUT ones (I now have two!) are just impractical!
But anyway, let me just say, in my most professional manner: YayYayYayYay!

One Down

Yay! Rejoice with Me!
CRA in GE@QUTIC is finished! Yes, I did title my assignment with a cryptic combination of acronyms. I actually wrote "at" instead of @ on the paper itself though. It seemed best. And the sub-title was about a paragraph long and explained it all, so that's ok, I think.
And now there's just a whole unit using all my favourite elementary simple past activities to do. I've done most of the planning for the unit, I just need to polish it, fill in a couple of gaps, and then there's a little matter of a 2000 word theoretical rationale to go with it. Sigh. At least I have a full 3 days to do it, with no work or other commitments.
Oh yes, I nearly forgot - I had my last day at work yesterday. I'm now officially unemployed. Or maybe I should say I'm a full time student... It's precisely one calendar month from today until I expect to find myself in front of a class again - and that will be in the UK, and in a room full of computers!

One Down

I'm done! I think. My first major assignment for the semester was submitted by email mere minutes ago, a mere 4 hours overdue (I had permission, as long as it was submitted sometime this evening). It was a test design. And when I look at it, it is actually worth exactly the same percentage as the last piece of assessment I handed in for my other subject, which I think I spent a total of about 5 hours on, and failed to get stressed about at all. This has taken me hours and hours, and raised my stress levels unreasonably. It's my fault though. I made it worth more by actually wanting it to be able to be considered for use in real life. The school I work for is in the process of adding speaking, reading and listening tests to their regular testing program, so I thought I could submit the speaking test I made as a possible, along with the criteria I worked out for it.
I should also have taken more notice of my stars today. According to the "Should I get out of bed tomorrow?" section of MX yesterday, the horoscope for scorpio reads:
"A quest for perfection sees you setting the bar a little too high for comfort. Avoid putting unnecessary stress on yourself and others, bearing in mind that near enough is probably good enough"
Advice I wish I'd taken... But it's done now, so all good. Now I just have to work on all the other bit of assessment I have hanging over my head.

Do you think we take acronyms a bit too far?

Last Thursday, I attended a GE CRA PD. GE is General English, the section of the school that I work in. CRA is Criterion Referenced Assessment, and PD is a Professional Development session. Here are some other acronyms that apply to me:
I'm a TESOL teacher, otherwise known as an ESL or EFL teacher (depending on what country I'm in at the time). I work for QUT, in the International College, often called QUTIC. I teach a class that is called NHWPI - New Headway Pre-Intermediate, although not so long ago I was doing NCEE. I take my students for a CALL session on tuesday afternoons, where we work from the OLT, and send them off to the ILC on Fridays. I occasionally teach IELTS prep, I'm an accredited PET and KET OE, though I can't do CAE or FCE, or CPE, for that matter. I'm currently working on an MEd (TESOL), in which I study such things as PPP, TBL, TOEFL, CLT, and many other things that assist NESBs to become proficient in the TL, and not use L1 in class. On top of that I'm GGG, but still have to learn how to DTMFA.

Feel free to ROFL anytime now. LOL.

Anyone else want to join my new club? It's called Ban All Three & Two Letter Acronyms. Otherwise known as BATTLA.

CYA

Egads.

And I thought I'd been slack on my non-travel blog, having not updated much this year. It's been months and months since I've written anything here.
So, I left Japan at the end of my contract to spend four days in Seoul, before arriving back in Australia. My plane touched down at 7am on the last day the universities were open before the three week Christmas holidays. So the only time possible for my interview at QUT International College was 10am the same morning. One of my lecturers from last semester had recommended that I apply there (thanks Marion!) So I had a quick breakfast at home (thanks Pam!), scraped together some cleanish, vaguely professional clothes, and found myself having an interview for a university job on a total of 15 minutes aeroplane-sleep. After about 15 minutes of the usual sorts of questions, the Director of English Language Programs, Ian, said he'd like to
offer me the job, and said "let me just see what hours you'll be working", and pulled out a printed shedule with my name all over it! I was so surprised, I didn't say anything when he said "you'll have 23 teaching hours a week. Usually 19 is full time, but it's a busy session". I had intended to declare myself available maybe three days a week, in order to leave myself some free time for The Life I had planned in Brisbane. But it turned out ok. I had 5 weeks of too much work - I worked out I was at school 50 hours in that first week, and only a bit less for the weeks after that - but I survived, and it's been a great experience. I'm now doing three days a week, plus relief when I fail to say no, and I may drop to 2 days when uni starts getting more stressful. Although it's similar to other teaching I've done around the world, it's definitely a step up. I'm using the same books I was using in Turkey (actually the newer editions, which are even better) but I have about twice as much time to get through them, meaning I have time for things like using Wallace and Gromit videos (and accompanying text books) and we have a computer session every week, and, now, a session in the brand new computer-language lab, which is a steep learning curve in itself. The lab was installed about 3 or 4 weeks ago, and for most people, it's a struggle to master the new technology. I have few problems with the technology (although the program looks dated and is a bit clunky to use, despite being cutting-edge), but as I've never used a language lab before, either as teacher or student, I'm learning a whole lot of new ideas and techniques for it. I'm also finding other interesting things, like the use of readers in class - in fact, I have a Professional Development session on it tomorrow - which is now today. I also taught my first IELTS preparation lesson today - thankfully prepared by someone else, as I was doing relief, but it was an interesting experience, and I think I learnt almost as much from the students as they did from me - they've spent much longer studying the formats and question types than I have, that's for sure.
And of course uni started this week, meaning I'm on campus at QUT 5 days a week. I'm very grateful to be teaching at the same plac eI'm studying - I have a desk on campus, which is very nice. Next session (after next week) I hope to be scheduled to work on Thursdays instead of Fridays, which might mean I'm only on campus 4 days a week, which would be nice.
I'm doing two subjects at uni - the last two I need to finish my masters, which is nice. I've chosen "From Theory to Practice" which has an excellent reputation, and is the most practical subject on offer (I was waiting for this semester when I knew I would be working to take it, as I wanted a class to practice on!). I'm also doing "Language Assessment and Program Evaluation" (or something like that) which sounds dry, but actually looks Extremely Useful. I hope I don't regret it. The advantage of these two is that they are the only ones on offer this semester that I haven't already done that have regular weekly classes. I nearly chose "Personalised Language development", which would allow me to use my french classes (I'm taking french classes with Sean every Friday now) along with a whole lot of research, reflection and assignment writing, towards the masters course. It seemed really good, but I know me, and I know I work far better when I have a weekly class that I have to have read things for.
So that's my life at the moment. Well, my professional life. The rest is, or will be, on the other blogs.