Online Diary: TEFL in Playa del Carmen from our 2008 Scholarship winner (4)
Wednesday, 25th March 2009
Georgina Newcombe, winner of the Suzanne Furstner Scholarship 08, reports back on week 3 of her CELTA course in Playa del Carmen.
Here’s a riddle for you. What’s part fox, part monkey, part anteater and part raccoon?
I was standing on the school balcony when I saw the strangest creature climb off a branch and shuffle nonchalantly along the wall, before disappearing into a bush. The other trainees were in the classroom, so I was alone in witnessing the event. I mentioned it during the coffee break, and they insisted it must have been a possum. But I grew up in New Zealand, so I’m more than familiar with what a possum should or shouldn’t look like. When I refuted this, describing the cryptid as – how else to put it? – part fox, part monkey, part anteater and part raccoon, they looked at me like I was an English eccentric who’d finally lost the plot: one of those Fortean, fairies-at-the-bottom-of-the-allotment types who waits with binoculars and a pot of tea in the hope of another sighting. But it’s a pressured period of the course, and everyone is going a little crazy. There were no less than three teaching practises this week, as well as two assignments due and an extra to be rewritten and resubmitted because I’d somehow mistaken half the grammar. Is ‘used to’ a phrasal verb? Apparently not. But having finally learnt what a phrasal verb is, I have a tendency to label everything as such just for the convenience. If I were a doctor in the Middle Ages, I’d be the type to cure everything with leeches.
Incidentally, I used to work at a language school where the teachers were so grammatically ignorant, we were given a special get-out clause for when a student asked a question we couldn’t answer. We were instructed to say ‘I haven’t time for that now, but see me tomorrow after class and we’ll discuss it then.’ If this wasn’t suspicious enough, it was suggested we should then pick up our books and leave the classroom before anyone could bring up the subject again; a level of professionalism which roughly equates to a surgeon mistaking a spanner for a scalpel, before excusing himself mid-operation to pop down the offie for a packet of fags. You might wonder how teachers of English could know so little about the subject they were teaching. The truth is, audio-lingual lessons are often scripted from beginning to end, so you’ve no need to know about grammar. After months of teaching the same thing, bits and bobs get stuck in your teeth and you start to understand the terminology, but it’s largely a case of reciting a script in a state of audio-lingual autopilot, whilst simultaneously wondering what you’re going to cook for that night for dinner. In-house training, though intensive, took just one week, and was treated as an extended job interview. I remember one poor soul survived until Thursday, only to be told his voice was too boring and could he shut the door behind him as he leaves. Admittedly there was something of the shipping forecast about him, but it just goes to show than any job advertised as ‘no experience necessary’ will also deem dignity a superfluous trait, so don’t say you haven’t been warned.
So, I’m now three quarters of the way through a CELTA, the stressful third week is behind me, and only one hour’s teaching practise remains. When I look out of my bedroom window, I suddenly remember I’m in Mexico and feel a surge of nauseous joy, the kind one experiences when a frantic fair ride slows down and the landscape shifts back into place. There’s a church opposite my bedroom, and children singing hymns. Birds are whistling from the rooftop. Having said that, there’s also banging from downstairs where they’re renovating the reception, so perhaps I’m exaggerating the sense of calm. Later I’ll walk on the beach and spiritually reacquaint myself with nature in my own, peculiarly English way: walking toe-deep in the ocean whilst wondering how close sharks swim to shore. I once read you have more chance of being killed by a falling coconut than a shark, so that in addition to wading only toe-deep into the surf, I’m forced to avoid the many coco trees lining the streets of Playa, zig-zagging pavements and peering up as though there were live bombs planted in the branches. I love the natural world, but at the same time I wouldn’t want to meet it at night down a dark alleyway.
Speaking of nature, the Californian emailed me this morning. Subject: Is this what you saw? And low and behold there it was: part fox, part monkey, part anteater and part raccoon. Or in other words, none of the above. It was, in fact, a native coatimundi. Cue the next two days watching amusing coatimundi videos on Youtube when I should have been planning my final lesson. Coati steals a sandwich! Coati vs. Golden Retriever! Coati gets its head stuck in a tin! According to Wikipedia, it is ‘a mammal in the raccoon family, particularly a solitary male.’ Now, I’m no expert on animals, but even I don’t understand how a species can reproduce and perpetuate if they’re all ‘solitary males.’ I envisage them as lonely bachelor types, harbouring stacks of lads’ mags, living off Pot Noodles, and not bothering to iron their shirts.
I never saw my friend on the wall again, but no doubt he went home that night - to his mother’s house, perhaps, if he had a pile of laundry - and remarked over dinner: ‘You know, I saw the strangest creature today on the school balcony…’
Tags: 4-week tefl course or equivalent, tesol, suzanne furstner scholarship, sff2008, celta, tefl, english
Posted by Georgina Newcombe 2009-03 under Blogs,
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