We Know Things!

Written by Brittany

This past week we spent the mornings, 8am-1pm, completing what should have been a five-week graduate course in five days. My head feels so full, so I can’t imagine how Jadon’s feels, since he’s had two weeks of tons-of-new-information more than I have.

Basically it was like I never graduated from my Education program; I’d just been on break since May. We learned strategies, made lesson plans, managed imaginary classrooms, wrote objectives with active verbs, presented the lessons to the class while being filmed (which we had to painfully watch & critique later). This actually was a great review for me, and putting previous knowledge into the EFL (English as a Foreign Language) context was really helpful.

And our classes, though jam-packed, were both practical and relevant, which, if you have taken education classes, you will know it is rare to get both of those from one course. We had two amazing professors who both have had SO much time serving in the field teaching EFL and could give us so much helpful knowledge aside from how to teach. Also with us was our in-country supervisor who could answer so many of our questions about teaching in the Czech.

My only complaint is our class did not end with a graduation ceremony, which, if you remember, Jadon has had TWO. Although they assured us we will be getting certificates later in the week.

We also know more details about our actual time to Prague to which I say, Hallelujah! You guys, I need to know things and to plan things (and yes, I know, to let the Lord take control of things). And we are finally getting answers, so I am finally calming down (by minute increments, but we celebrate progress here).

We now know the name of our school: Arabská. It’s a public high school, and we’ve been told we’ll have students anywhere from 11-19 years old. We will both be teaching conversational English. We also know that we will not be given a curriculum. The only direction our school has for us is: Make Them Speak English. So if you have any great speaking activities, we would gladly take them!

The Campus of our School
(Unless the Internet is lying to me, but I Googled, and I trust Google.)

And now today is our first day at the official Teach Beyond orientation, where we are living in a good ol’ Wheaton College dorm room, and we hope to be learning a lot more over the next five days. Things are getting answered and getting exciting! But things are also getting a lot more real. Once this week is over, we are going to have a LOT to process.

Say it with me: ONE MORE WEEK!