I really wanna kill myself.
So my boss really enjoys making me work on things I shouldn't be doing. While my 'work'mates, drink coffee, yawn and laugh...
I'm correcting hundreds of exams (I had to spend my weekend correcting 135 of those ) and on monday I had to re-correct another 45, since she realised there were too many bad marks, and because it was 'her' class (and she may be called from the school principal to ask her what the heck is wrong with her?), she asked me to make a new scale and 'fix' some grades.
WTF????
And I did it.
You know, I'm beginning to hate being a teacher.
So appart from the tests, yesterday she goes and with a guilty face asks me: 'May I ask you a BIG favour', I was thinking 'oh shit, more tests', but no. She adds: 'I need to go to my daughter's school this afternoon, so do you mind staying till 7 pm and replace me for a while?, you only have to look after them'
I looked at my watch and thought 'Mmmh, maybe I could, maybe I could do it this time...'
NO!!!!, NEXT TIME I GET ASKED TO DO SOMETHING LIKE THIS I'LL BURN MY SELF WITH ACID AND THROW MY BODY TO THE MAPOCHO RIVER!
In the end, the class began at 7:00 pm, and I didn't have to look after them, I had to teach the class even though I can't do that till next week, and it wasn't even my class.
Summing up, I ended up with leg-ache, head-ache and pride-ache, with another 135 tests to correct and a pat on my back.
Excuse me, now I'll go to curl in my bed and cry.
Excuse me but, WTF?
I didn't post anything yesterday since I was too tired to...well, breathe, not that I feel any better today for I got a terrible cold and I keep sneezing like a cat.
Yesterday I began developing some respect for my boss, today I lost it (life can certainly change in 24 hours). Yesterday she amazed me with her 'finger games', today I almost WTF-ed and OMG-ed at her in front of the whole class.
I shall better explain myself, and no, the 'finger games' do not consist on giving THE finger to the students or anything of the sort.
To make it short since I want to go to sleep *now*.
She begins her class moving her fingers around, each movement has a meaning so while she moves her fingers the students tell a short story in an almost understandable english, which is quite good, right?.
No. Anybody who has studied methodology knows that you can't do that shit because you cannot pay attention to the pronunciation of the students so it's a total waste of time, unless of course you enjoy making them sound like the Vienna Choir, but since it actually sounded good I was amazed and I almost wanted to do it myself (it sounded good, ok?)
So she spends the whole hour doing exercises: Simple past, verb to be, negative questions, wh- questions and so on, the amazing thing is these girls almost understood what she was talking about.
If it wasn't for her pronunciation...
For her a chip is the same as a sheep
Shek/Check
I can't listen you instead of I can't hear you
or the tragic: Read allow to see your pronunciation.
Is your mom a T-shirt teacher? (believe me, it sounded like that)
Speak IN english, instead of speak english.
...
And this was the class I 'liked'.
Oh as a side comment, she allowed 2 girls to go to the loo at the same time...uuhh oooooooooohhhhhhhhhhhhhh
Today: ZOMBBQ!!!1111246356736746746
I arrived 5 minutes early to the classroom and two girls told me they were going to look for the school nurse since one of them was feeling really ill, and she looked like it. I should've known that this could only be a bad omen.
My boss had to take some tests, but she didn't because their xerox machine was broken, so she makes them do the 'finger games' and then work on 'spider words'
e.g: Family: mom, dad, brother, etc
She gave them 8 words and the time was 20 minutes.
THE HECK?
Hello?, the attention span of any normal person is not beyond 5 minutes and she gives them an exercise for 20 minutes?
Still the little monsters do it, just because they are eager to please their teacher. I think if she asked them to jump of the window to get a good grade, they would do it.
Then she sends me to look for the missing tests, waiting for me to perform some kind of miracle (like fixing the machine, or whatever), so I have to run to the first floor, get lost and find two little girls who helped me find the damn machine but no tests. Wonders of wonders these little girls had english with my boss and they said 'ohhh yes miss *****, she used to make us play with our fingers'
Oh God.
So I go back, and the little monsters are still working, heh, I tell her there were no tests, so she begins checking the spiders.
'Ok girls now 'Face: eye, good, ear, very good, nose, good'
'señorita como se dice ceja?'
'EYEBRON'
'como?'
'EEEEEEEYEBROOOOON'
And this is the story of how 44 little girls had their future destroyed by a single woman.
Education is something serious you people! if you don't know something, don't go and teach your students some worthless SHIT, make them look for the word on their dictionaries or say I don't remember, not remembering is not a friggin' crime.
EyebroN
Geeeez.
'Girls, the_ ask and answer'
I went, I saw, I laughed I came back.
Oh my god, they know...NOTHING!, now thanks to that teacher I feel as if I'm an Oxford grad student (or something).
Let me explain.
I decided to arrive half an hour early running away from my aunt's food and I met one of my colleagues, the one who had already studied there. So we talked for a while, then she half explained to me where my classroom was and left.
So far so good.
I go to the 3rd floor to wait for the teacher and she never arrives, so I go to the teacher's room (after getting lost a couple hundred times and asking another hundred to the girls around me for it) where appart from being treated as if I was TT (teacher trash) by one of the old-and-wise teachers, I can't find my 'boss' and I decide to go back.
Once in the classroom I ask one of the girls if I was on the correct classroom, she says 'yes' and in a couple minutes I'm surrounded by 15 little girls asking me which was the diference between 'say and tell' because they had a quiz and they didn't know shit. Ok, I give them a couple examples and they leave.
Still no teacher.
Ten minutes later she arrives and chaos ensues.
She introduces me to the class but I don't think they paid too much attention to what she said -but I did-.
E.g: We have a lot of 'persons' in today.
WTF?
Ok I know that you may say 'persons' in some ocassions when you are trying to be polite and stuff, but this was not the case at all. Then I go to sit at the back to take notes, she begins by giving instructions about the quiz and I take more notes.
The quiz was good, but a total waste of time, since they didn't really learn the verbs for they were cheating and having problems with her instructions (even though she gave them in spanish).
In the end, she decides it's time to do some exercises on past simple/continuous. They had to write 'what did they do on their weekends, with whom, etc' and meanwhile she went to look for some materials, but before that she goes and write this on the board:
'The ask and answer'
Yes, you read right: The ask and answer.
Not 'TheN'
Yes of course we all make mistakes, I make thousands when I'm writing but, she looked at it 4 times! 4 times!
So this woman leaves me alone with all the poor air heads when I realise they are all staring at the board wondering 'what the heck' she meant by 'The ask and answer' so I went and explained one by one what did they had to do, and how, etc, etc.
She arrives once again with a couple hundred of boring handouts on superlatives, comparatives and simple past.
The girls didn't know anything she was talking about, they couldn't check the answers because they ran out of time.
My boss made another couple mistakes, that the students had to point out to her, so all in all it was a total disaster.
But not everything was so terrible, since they girls seemed to be friendly enough and they really wanted to learn or so I could feel. There was this little quiet girl who was studying english in some institute so at least she had the motivation enough to stand that crappy teacher.
There were some clumsy girls at the back and some others who seemed to have an attitude problem or something, but when I asked them if they had any problem they would all ask me more questions and act really polite.
So far:
Students 1 - Teacher 0
Even though my boss seems to be a very a nice woman, her english really sucks, no wonder why the standars of english are so low in Chile. Geeez I don't want her teaching my children (dream honey dream) any time soon.
She gave no homework but I have to create a personal interview so they can practise their spoken english. I have 18/25 ready, however to tell the truth I don't know how on earth they are going to answer, they don't even know how to say 'OUT' or 'SOME' in english.
Why me Lord, why me.
(Welcome to da' Maria sama ga miteru real action world)
Since this is going to be the first entry narrating my 'adventures' in my road to hell, I'd better begin explaining a couple things.
1)I've decided to write this journal because I usually bitch complain too much about my life and copying and pasting all my bitchness from window to window on irc is NO FUN at all.
2)I've decided to write it in English because...you never know. My students may be dumb but they know about the wonders of 'babelfish' so... yeh.
3)I have nothing against lesbians, gay people, bisexuals, etc, and I'm NOT making fun of them.
Yadda yadda yadda...
Ha-ha-ha Finally!, after 5 years I've become an entrapped soul English Teacher.
However as every decent citizent in any 'civilised country', I have to endure first 'The professional practise', which is according to -me- like a College initiation without the alcohol, i.e pure shit.
So, after weeks of sleepless nights, headaches, stomaches, and every other ache you may suffer from for thinking too much before going to the unknown, I am forced decide to go to **censored** and show my curriculum.
I chose **censored** for 2 reasons:First, because it is one of the best schools here (or I thought it was, we'll get to that later) and since my teaching experience equals CERO, my mother pushed me against the wall told me in a nice voice that doing my professional practise in an important place was fundamental for my future.
Mothers...
In the begining I felt as if God loved me though, for after staring at the papers I got from my teachers doing some research, the ultimate best school of Chile is here, in Santiago and I only needed to take the subway, which is a thousand times better than any other mean of transport here and cheaper, to arrive and being the lazy hen I am of course I has happy as hell.
Till I got there.
The woman who I talked to was a bipolar bitch with some weird hairdo who ended up saying the most hideous phrase in the hystory of human kind: 'we'll call you back' (it didn't help my mom had decided to go with me...and let's say that going with your mom to an interview is NOT a good idea)
However, bipolar bitch actually called me back!, after I called her twice...(and my mom called her once) and I had to pray a couple times, and fight with some other classmate because she wanted to go to the same school and according to her, she was going to be the ONLY person sent by the university to that school and that they had already sent a letter with her name on it.
In the end, I think someone in heaven must still love me (that or the Devil is too busy making all my sister's friends break up with their boyfriends to pay attention to poor old me) because when I went to the meeting, university whore wasn't there -ha-ha- and on top of that I found out that some other guy I knew was there too so I didn't feel so lonely surrounded by students from UCSH (some crappy good for nothing private university).
Now comes the 'good part'.
The thing is the meeting began at 9:00 am, and bipolar bitch went around asking everybody if they had any day they couldn't go to school, since we were all working in our thesis, but my turn never came. She decided I was going to work with the head of the English the department (holy shit) and that I was going to work in the afternoon (what the heck??). Of course you can imagine what happened when I said 'but I can't on Friday, I have to work on my thesis that day!', being the bipolar bitch she was she said: 'it's the only option you have', while she told to another classmate she could have 2 teachers to supervise her is she had problems with her schedule *insert smiley face here*.
$#€%@&!!
In the end I had to accept, because I was still mad for what had happened with university whore, and because bipolar bitch was trying to make me quit, and I'm _not_a quiter, I may be lazy as hell, but not a quiter, no sir!.
Bipolar bitch gives a 1 hour and a half speech which I am not going to write but I'd like to point out some 'interesting' things that caught my attention:
1)You may not let the students go to the bathroom at the same time because we have lots of lesbians at school and they go to the bathrooms to have sex.
2)We support our lesbian girls but we don't allow them stay at school till too late in the afternoon because they harass the smaller ones.
3)The classroom is not a beauty saloon nor a casino.
So around 1:00 pm bipolar bitch finishes her speech and says she is going to introduce us to our instructors but then she says I have to wait till 2:00 pm because that's the time my instructor arrives and proceeds to leave with all my other workmates.
Luckily one of the girls stays behind and I find out she is from my university as well and that she is an ex-student from that school, so I go and ask her 'hey is it true about the lesbian thing'?, and she goes and says 'but of course, actually I had a couple classmates that were kicked out of school because they were too over the top, but they complained to the authorities and they were on tv too'.
...
The thing is my instructor never arrived, and I waited and waited for nothing. Then I go and ask bipolar bitch, once she came back, if she could sign my authorization because on friday I had to have all my documents ready. So she began signing all the other authorizations first, when she signed mine I was so happy I totally forgot I needed a stamp on it too so she took all the other papers but mine. When I realised what had happened she got furious and she said if I wanted it I had to go back on Friday.
I went on Friday and she seemed to be in a better mood, so she gave me my authorization. Then some little girl talked to her about some pregnant student and bipolar bitch said: You are wearing make up!, and the little girl gives her a kiss and leaves happily. So much for her 'no beauty saloon' policy.
I asked her then if I had to begin on Monday with my practise, since I had not idea who my instructor was (actually I did know because I went with my workmates to the 4th floor just to meet her and when the little lesbians saw me and began calling her we ran away cackling), so bipolar bitch says: NO, I have to introduce you first!, so come back a 5:00 today, I looked at my clock
12:30 pm
$#€%@&!!
So I go to university, fill in all the papers and shit, go back to my house, ate a salad and go back running to the friggin' school.
Bipolar bitch makes me wait 15 minutes because she was doing I don't know what and then we go to meet my supervisor...hm...not yet. First she introduces ANOTHER girl who arrived I don't know when so I have to wait for another 15 minutes and then I finally get to know my boss.
She seemed to be a nice woman (but I won't trust faces anymore) and was quite proud of being the only one working with songs in english (geez), she studied at UMCE as well and we had the same teachers (yeh my teachers smell like cemetery). She made me introduce myself to her class which is not the one I'm supposed to help...but what the heck, so I went and said: Hi girls how are you!, and I waved my hand, and they giggled and waved their hands back to me. My heart melt.
Of course much later my boss said I didn't have to be too friendly or they were going to kill me and stuff, but we'll see that tomorrow.