We’re Home!!

We finally made it home about midnight on Sunday night.  Fortunately we were only stuck in Chicago for a few hours not days!!! Thanks very much to Joann Schultz who picked us up so late from the airport.  She was our driver at the start of this adventure as well.  We probably won’t be blogging much for awhile until we figure out the next part of the journey.  We have possible jobs in Prague and Turkey. At this point I think we are going to pursue the Turkey option which will probably start in late August.  Thanks to all of you who have followed us.  We appreciated the comments and the e-mails and we’ll let you know when we start up again. In the meantime I’ll be on my e-mail at clittle1946@gmail.com

Stuck in Chicago

Well we are sitting here after a very long day and waiting for a crew to come in from St. Louis, but we are on our way home and will be there in some time soon.

Joann is coming to pick us up no matter what time

we did it!!

We have certificates in hand and 12 lesson plans under our belts.  The students were fabulous, three groups of really different people.  You saw the pre intermediates on our video.  Just found out the one lady is 83 years old and the best English speaker of the group.  The intermediates are mostly young people and the advanced group is a mix of old and young.  You could see the improvement in just the 4 weeks we were here.

Of course our last day in Prague will be rainy and cold but at least I won’t be doing homework.  Assuming the volcano doesn’t erupt again, British Air doesn’t strike before Sunday we’ll be home late Sunday night, then who knows!!  We’re looking forward to seeing all our friends and family!   

Our Invitation to You to Come to Prague

Marie, Eva, and Vanda invite you to come see the most beautiful city in the world.  Here is their powerful logic to convince you to come and visit them and their city of wonder. 

“We want you to come to Prague to see very nice old town with big castle.  From the castle it is very nice view on the river vlatva  with very nice old Charles  Bridge. Lots of sculpture in the old town square is from 15 century, a astronomical clock.  Do you like old music and here lots of concerts. Prague is very nice town with a lot of history and romance.  And Prague is Charles university and a Prague Castle. We want you to come to Prague to see old town square with astronomical clock. I know you like old music you have to visit concert hall Rudolpho it is opposite  PRAGUE CASTLE. there is very nice view on the Prague Castle.  Eva loves swimming . Vonda loves listening to old music.  Marie loves her husband and two twin children.

Our team of students

Teaching action

You are now in a real live class in Prague teaching English

Carol and Jerry are teaching the same Pre intermediate class together today.  Just two classes left and we are on our way home.  Today Carol is teaching writing in her lesson so the students will create a blog and we will post it here.  You will meet the students and they will invite you to come to Prague.  Then I will teach them on acting as your guide once you arrive and the will practice speaking English. Stay tuned here we go!

Counting down

Well, not that anyone else out there reading this probably will think it’s a big deal but Jerry and I both passed our grammar test yesterday. However, for us it was a major piece of completing the course. Everyone has to get 100% on the test so that’s a big hurdle.

We talked to our contact in Turkey and she assures us we can get jobs starting in the fall. The town is Eskesehir and it sounds beautiful. Apparently it is a University town, easy to get around and lots to do. The weather goes from hot and humid to snow but we wanted something different. It’s not like we aren’t use to hot!

We went to the movies last night and saw Kick Ass. It was in English, their theaters are beautiful and comfortable. The movie is much more strange than I would have thought from the previews. At least it was different than studying! Wish us luck that the volcano doesn’t decide to erupt again next weekend when we will be heading back to Tucson. See you soon all.

made it through the third week

Jerry and I both taught the advanced students today which is the most interesting group because you can really carry on a conversation but we do sometimes struggle with explaining some of the words they don’t know.  Today we had to explain food processor, ambiguous, tidal wave, extreme sports, and composite just to name a few.  All the students really want to learn and you can tell how much effort they put into the lessons.

Tomorrow night we skype with a lady from Turkey.  There are quite a few jobs available in Turkey and it’s a place that’s interesting to us.  A recruiter came today who has jobs in Taiwan, Korea and China. Our instructor said that we could make a lot of money in Siberia.  Think we’ll pass on that one.  The key to being hired is to have the 120 hour training that we’re doing and get a good reference from your instructor. 

Speaking of skype.  It’s a brilliant invention.  We just talked to two friends from Tucson with video from both sides which was almost like sitting next to them.  It will be very helpful if we move so that we can stay in touch with all our friends and family.

The next step in the adventure

Even though we have almost two weeks to go our teacher is already giving us contacts for possible jobs after we finish.  We’ve been trying to find time to Skype with a woman in Turkey where the jobs sound very interesting.  There will be people who come in this week and next for interviews for the Czech Republic.  Then it will really time for us to make a decision on our next step.  We will be home May 16th because Jerry has some business to finish up and then we’ll make some  kind of decision. We both like teaching and it should be a rewarding career move.

Working on the Weekend

Today is the first cloudy and little rainy day.  But we are inside enjoying the beautiful homework.  Carol is way ahead of me in that she has already had her first session with her student and is able to get the hard stuff done like transcribing a 20 minute conversation verbatim.  I have my meeting tomorrow at 5 with my student from Lake Como, Italy.  I am looking forward to learning a lot.  We are both lucky in that we have young and energetic people to work with. 

We took a break and rode the tram all around town and went to our favorite vegetarian restaurant for an early dinner.  The town has a whole area full of vegie places.  We had watched the show “No Reservations” when he was in Prague and we thought we might starve to death, but just the opposite is true as usual on our travels. 

This is Carol again. I’m burnt out from all the homework this weekend but I thought any readers might find my student interesting.  As Jerry said we  each have a one on one assignment.  My student is Vugar who is a 20 year old young man from Azerbaijan.  He comes from a well educated family, his father is a PHD in physics and his brother is a computer programmer.  He has been studying English for only two years and wants to take an exam in August that will allow him to get into British schools.  Although he has a  long way to go, he has learned a remarkable amount of English in a short time.  He has all the typical problems the students have with correct tense forms (remember that word from HS English) but his pronunciation is excellent and he understands  very well.  We did a taped interview, a reading exercise, a listening exercise and writing sample.  Now I get to do the “error analysis”.  We wanted an adventure and we got it!