verbs, nouns, prepositions, conjunctions, reflexive, possesive, auxilary, past, present, continuous, active, passive, conditional... I dont think my brain is working tonight and I am totally confusing myself!!
I was putting off starting module 4 as I thought Grammar would be a tough one, but i decided to get started and even though I've spoken English all my life I cant quite get my head around all the tenses (more than i ever knew existed!) & I'm feeling pretty scared that in 6months i will be up infront of a class teaching this information in China!
I am doing my weekend course in a couple of days & I am hoping that maybe a few others who will be on the China Internship in August might be going to this session too (in london 6th/7th march)?
For anyone reading this who has already been on a weekend course can you give me a heads up - do i need to take anything with me or do any preperations? I am worried that i should have completed more of my online course before i go but I am only just working through module 4 now.
I have also been reading many blogs and posts since the current intern group arrived in China and I did become quite anxious about my decision to join the internship after reading about some of the accommodation with no heating etc, and people who either dont have placements yet and are still at the hotel in Beijing or in some cases where one poor guy in particular is the only english speaker in his city, far far away from all other interns!
I am really excited about being in a new culture and country and living with different levels of amenities and customs, but what some of the guys are going through out there has made me a bit nervous, and for any of you current interns reading this who are having problems I am thinking about you all and hoping things improve soon!, but it seems itoi are on the case and everyone who is alone is being given options to move etc so hopefully things will be on the up soon for the current interns and I hope to keep reading blogs as people get more comfortable in their environment and enjoy the experience, love to hear all your honest accounts. But any positives from those in China would be appreciated to calm the nerves here! :)
However despite all this i am more excited then ever for August and to start my 4.5 months in China!
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Hey Kate,
Glad you're looking forward to it! The group out there now are actually the second round of interns - the first round went off without a hitch, which is frustrating - generally if anything goes wrong it happens with the first round! We're on the case though to make sure they all get sorted.
How did you find your weekend course? Enjoy it?
thanks itoi, yeah its great to hear some of the good experiences so far from the current group, and I am sure things will only get better for them from now on. cant wait, think im far too excited considering its still 5 months away! :)
Are the group out there now the first ones on the internship?
thanks for the advice honor.
Keep going with all the grammar - it's a pain in the arse, but you'll be glad to know it in the end! If you get totally stuck you should get in touch with Emma, who's one of the online tutors: http://www.tefl-chalkboard.com/emmafoers
As far as the weekend course goes don't worry about not having completed much of the course before you go on it - when I did it I was just doing the 20 hour classroom course, so hadn't done any online study at all and still kept up (just about!). In terms of what to bring generally just a pen, a pad of paper and your brain is enough!
Hope you enjoy it!
Hi Kate,
Glad you're still excited about starting the internship - despite the problems some of the interns on this intake have been experiencing. TTC and ourselves are definitely on the case of getting people moved and things fixed where needs be. You might want to check out this thread in the China internship group - seems they're feeling a bit better already! http://www.tefl-chalkboard.com/groups/3-Teach-in-China-Internship/discussion/213-favourite-thing-about-china-so-far Our managing director and head of customer support will also be flying out to China in the next couple of weeks to make sure everything's been sorted and to check all interns are settling in OK.
Needless to say there'll be a lot of work going into your internship to make sure that (where humanly possible!) none of the problems the unlucky few have experienced this time round will happen again.
With your grammar block, don't worry too much about knowing it backwards, forwards and inside out - most schools in China want you to focus on students' conversational English, so while you need to know your grammar it's not the main priority!
Keep us posted with how you get on on your weekend course!
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