I am now over two weeks into my TESOL course and I cant believe how quickly it is flying by! Despite my misgivings I am actually really enjoying it and will be sad when it ends. The company who run the course are brilliant and so incredibly helpful. If I decided I was staying on to get a paid teaching position, they basically get you a job and help you find accommodation. They have said that even if I wanted to come back in a few months, or next year, they would still help me get everything sorted. Which is food for thought.

Anyway..the course - where to start??! It is a month long course in Phnom Pehn,a city I was fairly adamant I loathed but which I am still really loving. The first two weeks have been the academic side of things during which we have been learning the theory etc behind teaching. We have been taught by Rick, who is the director of the Asian sector of the organisation. He is a really nice guy, American but has been living here for years and years (well, in Thailand.) He has been an excellent teacher and makes the (long!) days scoot on by. Actually, I fear I have turned into a bit of a nerd. I am the most eager student and always arguing with the teacher about some point or another, and asking loads of questions. I think having spent my whole educational life hiding in corners and being terrified of speaking a word in class, I have now gone full circle and cant keep it in anymore! I.cant.stop.talking. Its a wee bit embarrassing, especially when it gets to the end of the lesson and I am still rabbitting on and on. Its generally at this point when I start to notice everyone else is rolling their eyes and one of my fellow students is sneaking behind me trying to duct tape my mouth shut. Anyway I digress. The academic side of things have been really interesting and at times pretty hard - the grammar and grammar test possibly the most challenging thing I have ever had to do. Past present continuous anyone? Anyone?! No, me neither. We have spent a lot of time on the structure of lessons, and lesson planning, which I think is going to be very useful. We have also ventured into phonetics, which i loved and would have liked to have written this email in, but you might not get it (see - GEEK!). Everyday we've all had to do 'peer teach' which consists of us individually presented a section of a lesson to our peers. This is a bit embarrassing and has yielded mixed results. A couple of my presentations have gone t*** up as I have either sped through them in 1 minute rather than the allotted 10 or got so fixated on getting it right that I have made my activities so complicated the 4 English people I am trying to explain it to don't understand. God help the poor Khmer kids when I get to teach (tomorrow! argh!). I think there may be some more reaching for the duct tape....!

The most memorable peer teach we've endured though has to be that of Noel, an American guy. We had to think up and act out a 'Communicative Activity' (essentially a game). Noel was a bit unprepared for this, and normally he has no problems at all, but on this occasion it all went a bit random. When his turn was up he left the classroom without saying anything and we could hear him talking to someone outside the room, telling them to wait. Then he walked in bringing a young terrified looking Khmer boy with him. He then proceeded to march this boy (dear and headlights springs to mind) to the front of the class, and make him read out some words from a sheet. These were words beginning with 'th'; a sound Khmer people have real difficulties pronouncing. And even though the boy was pronouncing it correctly, Noel kept correcting him and telling him to pronounce it incorrectly. The boy dutifully obliged and was send out, with a round of applause from us. I think Noel was trying to prove a point....but I didn't really get the point.

We have done some interesting things in class so far, including acting out a play entirely as though it was an opera, and a very heated game of Blockbuster ( something about this game gets to me and I start screaming - I'LL HAVE A P PLEASE BOB!!!! Im not normally competitive). Its been excellent actually. The next two weeks consist of us learning Khmei (Cambodian) and teaching practise. We went to the orphanage where we will be teaching today and observed a lesson. Tomorrow we are let loose on th kids and team teaching. Should be fun! Today was our first day of Khmei, and it is frigging difficult. I knew it would be, but I didn't expect it to be this difficult. Tomorrow we have the dubious honor of being unleased to the unsupsecting general public to practise. I just hope I don't pronouce 'what is your name' incorrectly and end up offending everyone, which is easily done. I'll keep you posted!

Lots of love

Ella

XXX