Rambling on

Well hello there again.

It's Thursday night (actually Friday morning) and the teaching week is over. Nothing spectacular happened this week (again). I had a migraine on Tuesday so took the day off. I think I'm getting the migraine due to eyestrain. It's over two years since I last had my eyes checked and what with my advanced years - well you can't be too careful. As it was I spent the rest of the week teaching using a video or doing a writing class.

I have an optician's appointment tomorrow and I'm hoping this will sort out the problems with my eyes - specifically how sore they get once I've been reading for about fifteen minutes. Sounds daft, I know, but I don't think I'd be able to do my job if I couldn't read without discomfort. It's bad enough trying to decipher students' handwriting at the best of times but when I can't focus or I'm seeing double - you see what I mean???

Don't worry though, I'll be fine. I remember when I was in Poland I had my eyes tested and the optician refused to fill the prescription until I'd seen an eye doctor. Turned out I had a form of conjunctivitis - without the gooey yellow stuff. I had a few months of eye drops and repeat visits to the eye hospital where I would stare into machines and press buttons if I saw a dot, and all of this was done in Polish. I didn't actually find out what was wrong with me until I returned to the UK and a local optician decoded the Polish prescription. Anyway, it all turned out fine in the end.

In other news from this end: I finally got around to sorting out my Italian file and writing up some notes on grammar. Learning a Romance language (Italian, French, Spanish etc.) is very different from learning English. When you learn English you are bombarded with vocabulary and the grammar is drip-fed in. With Romance languages you are bombarded with grammar and the vocabulary kind of tags along. It leaves me feeling a little vulnerable because a) I'm concentrating so hard and getting the right ending to the verb (and saying it right) and b) I never feel I have the right words for what I want to say. It is good for me as a teacher to reacquaint myself with this feeling, especially as I'm teaching mainly high level students (which means I have high level expectations). I have a feeling I've been spoilt by the students here. Even though they always claim to be tired (a word I have banned from my classroom along with 'fine') they do learn fast, they are diligent and, usually, highly motivated.

Interestingly, I read an article recently about how parents are over-structuring their children's free time, leaving them little time to play. I have a feeling that's what happens with my teenage students because after going to school all morning and early afternoon, they come to English classes with me and then on to some other activity (usually sport or music). When they finally get home, they have a ton of homework to do (to which I have contributed) before they can relax. I know I appreciate my down-time so I can imagine the teenagers feel the same. However, it does set them up for the future when they will be attending university, holding down a part-time job or internship and attending English lessons. I remember being at university and having a part-time job during the academic year and how there weren't many of us doing that (although others worked during the holidays). I know it is much more usual nowadays. In fact, recent figures have shown that a university education is becoming unattainable for many people unless they want to spend their lives under a mountain of debt and never be able to buy somewhere to live. Bring back the days of free education I say and bugger the tax cost - other, poorer countries can do it so why can't Britain?

OK enough of the politics. I think I've rambled on enough for one night.

Ciao