I am officially the first Pavlik living back in the Czech Republic! I have a home, have a job, have a bank account, have health care, have a visa good until April 1st, and have just received my trade license, which allows me to legally work here as my own business. It took three months to get everything together, though. A looooot of running around and scrambling to collect necessary documents and information!
As you may know, after Patrick Murphy went back to the U.S. to begin his career as a physical therapist, I continued with my TEFL course here in Prague. The Teaching English as a Foreign Language program went well and I received a high pass, guaranteeing me a job at the school, where I have been working since September 8th.
The following photos are all taken during the month of the TEFL program as the rest of my classmates and I were first exploring the city and getting our bearings. During the program I stayed at "The TEFL House", a house owned by the school and reserved for students in their class to stay at during their month-long sentence. No, it was a blast, didn't feel like we were serving time at all! We had a community kitchen and living area where we would all gather and do homework or work on our various lesson plans and projects together. The 10 of us (full capacity for the house) would often undergo the 40-minute commute to the school together in the mornings. Looking back, the house was a fantastic entry into the Czech world and workplace, as it created a sense of community, built friendships, and provided a sort of 'easing-in'.
The TEFL course consisted of teaching/educational courses every morning from 8.00 to 12.15. These courses ranged from theory to how to teach young learners to differing styles of grammar lessons. We had 3 instructors who shared these courses: Peter, an Englishman, Jarmila, a Czech, and Jiri, a Czech. After these courses we would have about an hour-long lunch and then would return to the school for teaching practice. Three groups of Czech students had volunteered to be 'taught' by us, and effectively functioned as out guinea pigs for the month. Each student had to give six 45-minute lessons during the course of the four weeks and one 90-minute lesson.
However, three-month-old news, while being new information, can hardly be called news! Hopefully this post offered a little insight into the whole TEFL program process, but expect another current one in the next two weeks!
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| A couple walking beside on old building on the riverfront (river opposite) |
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| Patrick made a quick excursion to Warsaw, Poland and then returned to Prague for the weekend. This was a basketball tournament that was happening. Needless to say, the performance was quite dismal when compared to U.S. ball. |
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| Doing the walking tour: at the summit of Petřín hill |
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| St. Vitus cathedral in Prague Castle....easily one of the most impressive cathedrals in Europe. It is impossible to get a sense of how absolutely gigantic it is until you walk inside. |
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| The free access to the cathedral allows viewing of roughly four of its magnificent window. There must be closer to 10 in all. |
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| This is the CLT (Communicative Language Teaching) method that we learnt during the program. It is designed to promote more student participation and discovery and minimal teacher lecturing |
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| Patrick throwing down some verses during our last poetry session before he left for the U.S. |
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| My new world. The school has an entire library of teaching resources, many of which are a little outdated |
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| The school I now teach at...Caledonian is the biggest school in Prague and well-known for their business English in-company courses. Which means that I get to travel all over Prague to various companies to teach... |
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| ....so this becomes routine, searching a route to your next course and how one can go about making it there using public transport |
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| Introducing Mark, one of my TEFL course classmates and my current roommate |
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| Early morning Prague |
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| Helping Mark move some luggage...yes, we took this bad boy on the public bus...then the tram...then walked with it. At one point a man asked "What do you have in there, a body?" Mark's response: "Two." |
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| My first care package from my sweet mother! Always happily accepting letters! Even more happily accepting Reese's ;) |
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| Went to a Bohemian BBQ and Bluegrass festival that we spotted in town. Needless to say, it was delicious and the music was great |
