You Go Nate!

I'VE FINALLY FINISHED!

Well after long last I have finally completed the TEFL course here at Maximo Nivel and am now certified to teach English to speakers of a foreign language. It was a lot of work but it was fun and definitely worth it. I start teaching six classes tomorrow (though I still don't know when, it's kinda crazy... I'll find out tonight.) I'm excited and it will be nice to actually be earning money rather than just spending it.

Me in our Classroom. Click on the picture to enlarge it and you will see a Princess Leia sign below me. That was from my first mini lesson when I taught Who's Who in Star Wars. The different character labels floated around the room for awhile and some taped them to their spot at the table, like Maria with Princess Leia.

UPDATE: apparently this one you can't click on. Sorry.

Because our instructor had to go to Lima this week for something and because Monday and Tuesday were more softball days, we had our End-of-the-Course Party last Friday. It was with all the TEFL students, all the teachers here at Maximo Nivel, the staff of M.N., and a few of the English students that were "Guinea Pig" students for our in-class mini lessons. There was free beer, wine, Coke, Fanta, Sprite and Pizza. I pretty much drank all the Coke. The pizza was really good too. They have a pool table here so we played a little pool, we ate and drank (but were never merry.) It was Jed's birthday (a TEFL student) so we had cake and someone brought a pinata. In the pinata was candy, little plastic toys (a boat, a pig, etc.) and a few cigarettes. It was funny. The party started at 9:30pm but by 11:30 I was so dog-gone tired I just took a cab home. Others went out to some bars and stuff. I got home ready to hit the sack but I couldn't fall asleep because I had drank too much Coke. (So it's a really good thing I don't drink alcohol I guess.) The next morning I was pretty sick. I won't give any disgusting details here, but let's just say it rhymes with "Liariah." But I really didn't have any plans for Saturday so it was ok to just lie on our "couch" and watch movies. I did have an orientation meeting in the afternoon to start working at Maximo Nivel, but I was feeling well enough by then.

Hangin out at the party. (That's a Coke bottle in my hand by the way.)

Jed taking a swing at the pinata.

Sunday was nice and restful and it was so nice not to have to worry about anything due in school the next day. I am understanding more at church now than I used to. Probably somewhere around 17.3%.... other than in Sacrament meeting because the microphone was out.

On Monday afternoon in class we had a Quechua lesson. The idea is for us to have a language lesson in a completely foreign language where we understand nothing, to give us an idea of what it might be like for second-language-learners. It's an interesting language and it reminded me of first learning Hungarian where there are no common Latin or Indo-European roots. We also took part of the TOEFL and IELTS exams which are two English exams for speakers of other languages to get into Universities around the world. Ken offered $20 to anyone who could ace the IELTS and $10 to anyone who could ace the TOEFL. No one in our class did it, though some came close. I missed several questions on both tests. We did this to get an idea of what these tests are like for those whom we might be teaching who will take them. There's actually an additional course that students can take here at Maximo Nivel that preps them for taking these tests by teaching test-taking strategies.

Today was the final day of class and we did a few things but specifically Ken helped us with our resumes. We then got our certificates and got one last picture as a group. Our group was actually pretty close knit and everyone was good friends by the end.

The final photo of the TEFL Group

On Sunday evening a member who owns a large SUV took us up to a hilltop overlooking Cusco where there is a giant white statute of Christ. It was a full moon and so I got a few cool pictures. So I leave you now with these pictures from Sunday night....

The "Cristo Blanco" and the moon.

Cusco en la Noche (click to enlarge)

ps. you can now leave comments apparently, so go at it.