Blogging the CELTA (or at least trying to)

In addition to other things, I'll be trying to blog about my CELTA course. The main reason is you can't find many first-hand accounts out there. I would have found it helpful, thus I am assuming others will.

The first thing about a CELTA course you should know is it's not cheap. That's not to say it's overpriced, in fact I feel the price asked was fair. If you want cheap sign up at Billy Bob's House of Kebabs and English for an online TEFL certificate. Do you need to take a CELTA course? I don't know, that's really up to you in the end. Can you get a job without the CELTA? Certainly. There are plenty of outfits the world over offering immediate work for people who had the dumb luck to be born in an English-speaking country. I refuse to call native English speaking a skill. Learning the language and learning how to actually teach it in a meaningful and truly educational way is, however, a skill. In fact some of these "schools", and I use the term loosely, don't even bother requiring things like professionalism, maturity, etc. Wander through the various TEFL/TESL discussion boards and you'll read plenty.

I have signed on with one of the "schools" simply looking for "native English speakers" in order to make some income during my course. Istanbul is, sadly, not a place most of us can linger without income. I completed the three day training cycle in this school's "method" yesterday. When I arrived the for my first day of training I was handed a stack of DVDs, yet not informed that there were supposed to be multiple days of training. In my determination and/or stubbornness I spent all of Wednesday in a hot, grey computer lab lit solely by fluorescent plugging diligently through videos of what look to be the most uninspiring lessons ever given. This is training, not educating or teaching. There is no expectation that you write your own lesson plans, that's taken care of in the materials, you only have to fill out the appropriate form properly. The online training is about as challenging as biting my nails and if anybody ever actually managed to fail the subsequent testing I am amazed they could even handle getting out of bed on their own. The live training followed the the lines of the DVD training and we were asked to practice teach mini lessons from the books each day for the trainer. Last night I was asked to observe two high level classes. That was fine, but being warned by a seemingly happy teacher, "Don't hesitate to look for something else." She gave me a knowing look and added, "There are better schools and employment here is a bit uncertain." Then she smiled, winked, and wished me well.

Last Friday was the second day of my course, which will be held every Tuesday and Friday from now until December 14. This is an extended course, as opposed to the one-month accelerated course. The first portion of day one had us squarely in the role of student. We began with the classic ball toss ice-breaker activity to help everyone learn names. However, our trainers also pointed out these activities go beyond helping with names and setting a welcoming classroom environment and can serve as useful diagnostics to assess students' grasp of the language. We ran through a few others, including "two truths and a lie", where you write out three statements about yourself and then have other students try to guess the lie. A bit of time had to be spent on simple administrative tasks, such as passing out textbooks, paperwork, and reviewing scheduling.

The most striking session from the first day was led my Elna who welcomed us back from a short break in a language none of us understood. Elna led us into "My name is," and other short question and responses, all in a language that seemed vaguely German or Dutch, but obviously neither. We all managed, through her review and a series of games, to learn several phrases and how to answer a few questions in only 30 minutes. Elna finally revealed she was teaching us Afrikaans and put us into groups to discuss the lesson from the view of the student and the teacher. It was an interesting role reversal that might be helpful to return to from time to time in one's teaching career in order to regain perspective.

We will be student teaching two groups with about ten students in a group. One group will be teaching at the intermediate level and my group will be teaching the elementary group. We began looking at the subject of lesson planning in the afternoon. During our first teaching practice session each of us in my 5-person group taught a portion of a lesson in 20 minutes. Subsequently, three of us will teach 40 minutes each on Tuesday and the remaining two will teach their 40 minutes on Friday. I found teaching the 20 minutes far more difficult than actually teaching. Not to mention your nervous being observed for the first time and on your first day with your students you've yet to get to know them or assess their skills. Assessment is really the goal of this first lesson and, indeed, by the end of it we knew their names and the two or three who were higher and lower than the average.

We were given our first assignment Friday. Most of the writing assignments will be essay form and must be 750-1000 words. This first assignment, and I don't know how much the assignments or their order changes course to course, is about lesson planning for a reading or listening activity. We discussed receptive and productive skills related to both activities and observed one of our trainers taught us a sample reading lesson, which we later discussed. This time we had to select an appropriate text or listening activity from the Headway book we are using for our students or a related book available from our school, write a lesson plan, and then write an essay discussing what we chose, why, if we altered it and how, and the receptive and productive skills associated with the lesson. Everything is due on Tuesday the 16th, after our week off due to the Bayram holiday. At some point in the course, we will teach these lessons to our teaching practice students.

Salaam.

Alive and well in Istanbul

Just a quick note to let people know I'm still breathing. I seem to be having a very hard time opening the new posts link for Blogger on my laptop. Hopefully, I'll find a way around that...

My CELTA class started yesterday. I really don't see how somebody does that every day, like in the intensive course. I'm quite happy to be taking the more leisurely 10-week course. We'll have quite a bit of work, including a few 1000-word essays, but nothing that sounds horrible.

I managed to find a room to rent. I'm sharing an apartment with a young Turkish couple in Harbiye, across Cumhurriyet Avenue from the Military Museum, about a ten-minute walk from bustling Taksim Square . The room is small, but perfect for now, and my roommates are great.

I'll be teaching part-time for a language center during my course and it will be interesting to see how that goes. It's a well-known name, even if you don't teach English, and I'll leave it at that for now. I hope to find something more formal after that. I've also started making some interesting friends and continue to terrorize average Turks with my basic, broken Turkish. Interestingly, until I open my mouth, everybody seems to believe I am Turkish.

I'll write more, when I am not in a training session for work...

Salaam.

Good night and good luck, America.

It's about midnight here in Atlanta. I need to get some sleep, but I always find it hard to sleep the night before a departure. I'm tired, yet wide awake. Everything that can be packed is packed. I have an ambitious stash of reading materials to take on board. I'm due to arrive in Istanbul Sunday night.
For now, I need to turn out the lights and at least shut my eyes and pretend to get a good night's sleep.

Salaam.

PS: Happy to report Nelson Mandela is STILL alive.

National Day of Action for the Jena 6

While the media is all over the new O.J. Simpson case, the Jena 6 case continues to outrage and is only gaining traction in the mainstream media after several months. Today was a nation-wide day of action in support of the 6 young men charged in the case. Anyone who tells you the U.S. is a post-racial country is blind or lying.

Salaam.

Updates on Israeli airstrike on Syria

Josh Landis over at Syria Comment has a series of posts updating the swirl of information, conjecture, rumors, and speculation over last Thursday's Israeli air strike on Syria. Be sure to check out his Recent Post column for the evolution of the story over the last few days. Turkey is none too pleased about this, either.

Salaam?

Leaving on a jet plane, soon.

Just watched: 2 Days in Paris, written, directed by and staring Julie Delpy. I LOVED this film!
Just discovered: The band Over the Rhine, who play literate and hard to define music, and the bibliophile blog 50 Books where Doppelganger reviews all her great reads and lusts after remarkable bookshelves (proving I'm not the only one with a bookshelf fetish).
Reading: My Nikon D80 manual, causing me to cast longing glances at my 30+ year-old Pentax K1000. I'm like an Amish kid on Rumspringa with digital right now.

Saturday will begin my last week in the States. Here are the plans. I leave on the 22nd for Istanbul. I fly via Chicago and Dublin and arrive at about 9pm on the night of the 23rd, which is far preferable to those 2am arrivals into Damascus. You're generally a quiet audience, but if anybody has any advice for an 8 hour layover in Dublin, please let me know.

The refugee women I teach on Saturdays threw me a party last week. Lots of laughing and lots of food from Afghanistan (chicken and pilaf - amazing) and Liberia (sweet potatoes, greens, chicken, and "broken rice"-delicious). I brought the music of Usted Farida Mahwash for one of my Afghan students and she danced and sang along all afternoon, making sure to point out to me which instrument I was hearing or something important about the structure of a song. Om-Taromeet is visiting Saturday for my last class. I will really miss these women.

Packing is a difficult balance. Clothes are relatively easy. Books are the hard part for me. I remember how expensive books in English are over there (not to mention a $25 New Yorker), which makes my diet an expensive one. There are the "I must takes": a few books on Turkish and Arabic, Kelby's book on Photoshop for CS2; the "I need to read"s: Said's Orientalism (I swear I'll finish it this time) and Covering Islam, a biography of Badshah Khan, Art & Fear, Reading Like a Writer, and Freely's Istanbul; and the "I want to read"s: The Mystical Poems of Rumi, Sontag's Styles of Radical Will, Maalouf's The Gardens of Light, Montaigne's Essays, Homer's The Iliad & The Odyssey, McCarthy's The Road. I'll be handing them off as I finish them, hopefully in trade. Of course I am still hunting for Munif's Cities of Salt and have my eye on Kinross's The Ottoman Centuries and Shafak's The Bastard of Istanbul. But, you have to say yeter at some point.

Om-Taromeet will visit from Florida tomorrow through Sunday. She told a class of 5th graders at her school I was moving to Turkey. They laughed, hard pressed to believe there is some place out there named after the bird they eat on Thanksgiving.

Ramadan karim and L'shanah tovah to my friends celebrating today.
Salaam.

Internet Censorship in Syria

Charlie don't surf* and, apparently neither do Syrians these days. Somebody please reply to Golaniya's question about solving the comments issue, especially in light of the Syrian government criminalizing anonymous comments. Like Turkey, the Syrian government seems to be going with the "it's to protect against defamation" claim. I wonder exactly what the forthcoming new media law will entail?

Salaam.


*I'm assuming you've seen Apocalypse Now, yes?

"Kicking a$$" in Iraq, the musical.

President Bush used a colorful phrase this week to describe his opinion of the progress of U.S. Forces in Iraq. His remark provided me a perfect opportunity to share video of one of my favorite songs. For once, and I suspect only once, thanks Shrub. May I present our new national anthem:


Fear not, good people of Turkey, I'm not like these fellas. Though, in the interest of disclosure, I do have relatives who bear a resemblance to the one in the overalls.

Stephen Fry and Hugh Laurie are two of my absolute favorite Brits. Everybody should get the DVDs of A Bit of Fry and Laurie.

Salaam.

Happy Birthday, Marie!

My friend Marie Elizabeth Wiegenstein O'Connor is turning 99 on September 10th. Yes, ninety nine. It's not just the accomplishment of grazing the century mark. Marie is one of the kindest, funniest, and downright pleasant people I've had the pleasure of knowing. She is a rare bird, a genuinely good soul. She's had quite a life. She and her husband lived in France as part of the reconstruction following WWII and traveled Europe extensively in a time when most Americans still spent most of their lives in hometowns. She raised three sons, is a proud grandmother, and never misses Mass. When she tells stories of the years she spent living out west or growing up on her family's farm, the margins of her stories are peppered with modest references to history that launched many a Google search.

Looking back at history, the world we know today has grown up with her:
1918: WWI ends; the Spanish influenza pandemic; the execution of Czar Nicholas II and his family; first documented interracial jazz recording made;
1928: Fleming discovers Penicillin; Hirohito becomes Emperor of Japan; first regularly scheduled television programming aired; Mickey Mouse makes debuts in Plane Crazy.
1938: The Anschluss; Kristallnacht; Oil discovered in Saudi Arabia; Atatürk dies; the ballpoint pen patented; Orson Welles causes chaos with War of the Worlds radio broadcast.
1948: Mahatma Gandhi murdered; establishment of the State of Israel; World Health Organization founded; Italian film The Bicycle Thieves released.
1958: Treaty of Rome signed establishing the European Economic Community (later the EU); 5,000 U.S. Marines land in Beirut; Radio Rebelde begins broadcasting from the Sierra Maestra in Cuba; Hitchcock's Vertigo.
1968: Dr. Martin Luther King and Sen. Robert Kennedy assassinated; Baathist take power in Iraq; Tet Offensive; Nixon elected President; Cash's Folsom Prison Blues and The Beatles White Album.
1978: First IVF baby born; Cardinal Karol Wojtyla becomes Pope John Paul II; Camp David Accords signed; Steve Martin premieres song King Tut on SNL.
1988: Soviet Union begins withdrawing troops from Afghanistan; Halabja; Iran-Iraq War ends; Hawking's A Brief History of Time.

Congratulations and much love, Marie. Here's to your 100th candle next year.

Salaam.

Oh, SAMA!

So, he's back after several years. He's looking less gaunt and has picked up a box of Just for Men to wash that gray right out of his beard. Last time we heard from him was just before the 2004 elections:
"And know that: "It is better to return to the truth than persist in error." And that the wise man doesn't squander his security, wealth and children for the sake of the liar in the White House."

After all these years and all those billions of dollars we have yet to find a 50 year old with a possible litany of health issues who depends on dialysis, walks with a cane, and lives in a cave.

My favorite comment came from Anderson Cooper last night:
"al Qaeda's production company -- and, yes, they do have a production company -- posted the following banner ad. "

The whole "hunt" has gotten surreal and ridiculous at this point. Apparently, most in the U.S. now believe he'll never be caught.

Salaam.

A Public Service Announcement for Women

I hope all the you women out there saw this story. I don't know about you, but I'm willing to "live in sin" for equality in the home. I am seriously disinclined towards domesticity and domestic pursuits myself.

Salaam.

The Strange Bedfellows of Turkey's Creationists

This story aired on PRI's The World last night.

Why does this partnership remind me of the "Christian" extremists, "Christian Zionists", etc. who rabidly support the Israeli government and are fervently courted and welcomed by some Israelis and Jews, even though their Rapture visions include the slaughter anybody who doesn't covert to their way of doing things, so to speak? I just want to sit them down and say "you do realize these people still think you're evil and going to hell, right?"

And no mention of the related WordPress ban.

As I keep telling people, usually after watching a little TBN, I hope Jesus is coming back and soon because he really needs to have a sit down with some of the folks claiming to be part of his organization. Speaking of which, has anybody ever seen the Saturday Night Live Skit with the late Phil Hartman as Jesus confronting an overzealous follower? Classic.

Salaam.

The Next War - Updates

This is troubling, but doesn't strike me as out of the realm of possibility. Keep checking the Global Affairs blog, which updates this topic regularly and includes many good links.

Salaam.

Riverbend and Her Family Made It!

I was so happy to finally see a new post today from Riverbend at Baghdad Burning, her first since her family made the difficult decision to leave Iraq. Everybody, especially in the US, should read this post. She and her family are lucky they made it into Syria before September 10, when Syria will begin requiring visas for Iraqi refugees.

Meanwhile, please explain to me why Iraqis cannot apply for refugee apply for refugee status at the shiny, new U.S. embassy in Baghdad, and instead must risk a border crossing to Syria or Jordan? How will they apply in light of Jordan and Syria changing their entry policies? Read this to see just how difficult the process is.

Listen to two great reports on the crisis in Damascus and the challenges facing the refugees seeking to immigrate to the U.S. from National Public Radio, which reports a mass exodus in anticipation of the deadline.

Shame on us.

Salaam.

Israeli Airstrike On Syria?

This morning on NPR I heard about the supposed intrusion on Syrian airspace by Israeli jets. Israel is saying they didn't, Syria says the Israelis did, dropped their fuel tanks and/or munitions, and Syrian forces fired on the jets. Tried to check the U.S. television news channels this morning, but they were tied up, as usual, with a useless local news story (another standoff with police). Josh Landis weighs in. He links to this article from Haaretz, which has some follow-up links at the bottom of the article.

According to Haaretz, Al-Arabiya is reporting the location as "North-Eastern Syria, near the Turkish border". The jets came in from the sea. Jerusalem Post says it happened near "Abyad".

Salaam.