My new life in The Czech Republic

I arrived in Prague at the end of August and have been here for just over a week. But this last week has been pretty random and crazy. For the first month here I decided it would be wise to refresh my mind in TEFL so im doing an onsite course here. Im staying in an apartment with 7 other people doing this same course, and they're all amazing. There are 4 Americans, a Canadian, an Aussie, and another English guy.  On my first day I was given a slip of paper with an address of a business in which I was suppose to go and an employee there. It listed her interests and level of English, so I was like "wow getting chucked in the deep end." Anyway I created up a needs analysis with some questions I was going to ask this woman in order to know what to teach her. So the following day I find this address and its some huge outstanding posh building. It had water features all around, in and outside.  You needed a swipe card to go up and down the lifts which I didn't realise (I spent 10 minutes trying to figure out how to work this lift haha). So eventually I go to the reception and they give me a swipe card. I get to where I need and I'm like "WOW" this place is out of my league. I got escorted to this room where I was going to teach. All four walls were made of glass, aswel as the floor. The table and chairs were fit for a king, and the TV hanging on the wall was huge! My student came in and we sat there for the hour talking about each other, the usual get to know each other stuff, and I got some information from her that would help me know what to teach her.

When I went back to my TEFL centre I was told I had to teach onsite with some students. So  went away and prepared the most crazy and creative lesson I could imagine. I had some ideas from my tutors which helped alot. So I had my lesson all planned and there two middles aged women walk in. My first thoughts was "Oh No, they wont find it funny". I introduced myself and asked for their names. Then I used an idea that my tutor gave me. This was to give my students English names seeing as we was in an English lesson. I then asked my students to give me one thing in life that they like, and one thing they don't like. Immediately one of my students daggers me in the eyes and says "I don't like my new name!" She then wrote her name on a piece of paper and slammed it on the table. Then her mobile phone went off and she just answered it and walked out. So anyway I had a picture I had drawn of a bee,  because I hate them (their stings hurt). I wrote 'evil' under the bee to describe what my thoughts were on this creature. Straight away one of my students asks me "Is this insect called evil?" Me and all the other teachers (sitting around the edge of the classroom) have a little giggle. I eventually managed to explain that evil was an adjective to how I would describe this insect. Then I got started with my main part of the lesson. It has so much creativity, I wish it was on video. Everyone was laughing and I felt pretty happy with myself that me, the other teachers and my students could all have fun whilst learning. I got alot of positive feedback on this lesson, so I may use this in the future.

On the Friday I only had to work an hour, and that was with my in-business student. So after me and one of the other guys decided to go for stroll. We got on some random tram after walking for 2-3 hours we decided to have a break and just see where this tram would take us. So we get of the tram and think "Where the hell are we?" We walk for a while and come to some small town in the middle of nowhere. There was these random goats in somebody's front garden which was pretty random. We could see in the horizon a massive Tesco sign. So we decide to start walking towards it, it only looked like a few miles across some fields. Our first obstacle was this field full of ticks. Luckily we was wrapped up well and we survived that. Then we came up to a motorway. There was no way around it for miles and it was rush hour so the traffic was intense. We ending up getting the courage and running for our dear lives between these cars doing easily 80+mph. After crossing that we had another busy junction but it had traffic lights so it made things a little easier when half of the traffic stopped we just ran across the road. We then had to cross a newly half built road. At first we thought it was easy, but when we started running across it we realise it was wet concrete. We started sinking on every step we took but we some how made it across to the other side, One more obstacle . . another small field, the vegetation was head height so we was a bit worried about ticks again but didn't hesitate and made out way through. STINGING NETTLES . . . ouch!!! Finally we are there. We found a way to get the public transport back, it was for the best. A crazy day was how I would described it.

Since I've been here I've been enjoying the Czech beer, and have found a shop that you can buy a 20 litre keg, yum yum :)

 So that's my story so far.

• Czech Republic
• Prague