This week at incredible, had a bit of foreshadowing to it. In central Amsterdam, Felix had the opportunity to Do a telephone interview for the position of a French-speaking customer service representative for British standards international (BSI). He got the email on Monday so we spent Wednesday and Thursday practicing. While it is true that his English is not where I wanted to be, I think that confidence makes up for a lot. And if there’s anything that Felix is, it’s confident. These couple of lessons, I think, or giving me a taste of what it might be like to work at the English center. Though I think, (Reid: I hope), Or a small taste of what I might expect teaching business level English to executives. And in fact I hope that that will be easier than with Felix because If there’s one thing that the Dutch have, it’s very very good English skills. But as with anything, there is always room for improvement. I find the people here have just enough English to make them selves understood but only get to a certain level. They struggle at higher levels of English. In particular with work-based English, people know the English that they need for their jobs, but try to have another type of conversation with them and they do struggle. I’m hoping that the English center incorporate some of that as well or if they do not, will allow me To do so.
I am afraid that the parents at VIP kids are getting the short end of the stick from Me. I don’t mean in my teaching certainly. I am is focused on that as ever. But I have stopped excepting priority booking request, because I have asked the English center if I can do some shadowing before I start to teach Myself. Since I’m not sure when the English center will offer me these shadowing hours, I have decided to wait until I know from them when I will be shadowing someone and then adjust my schedule accordingly. The only problem is these are unpaid hours. So in the short term it means a lot of money but in the long term and increase in wage.
In the suburbs of Amsterdam, Carlton has taken some initiative. His teacher at school sent me some flashcards with easily confused words in English. This past week we worked on reading them and using them in sentences. But I made it into a game where I put four cards down on the table and he picked one and made sentences. For the ones that he didn’t know I separated them out and will continue to practice them with him. In an interesting turn of events however, he has decided that he wants to play a memory game with the words and so this evening that’s exactly what I’m gonna do.
Katya and I have a suspended love affair. You know that I haven’t seen her in forever. Last night we tried to teach at the airport, but because of scheduling conflicts and Logistics that was not to be. I’ll probably see her next week, and I hope that she hasn’t forgotten me by then. I also hope that I am still her favorite teacher. Because even teachers are subject to a little bit of hubris.
I also got the chance to go to a Dutch vocational high school where are the children Are learning how to cook. Why would I do that you ask? The answer is simple. These cooking classes are in English. Thursday’s lesson happen to be there exam and their teacher made My friend Sue who is Australian and myself the focus of the children’s exam. They had to ask us three questions and then write sentences of 20 words or more about our answers. I must confess that I didn’t really see many of the kids writing 20 words or more except for one. We went back again on Friday and it turns out that the teacher spent a year and a half in DC so we got a chance to talk about his time there. My friend Sue taught at the school for 10 years and that’s how I was able To gain access to the class. If I have some volunteer time I might think about volunteering there. Maybe that will improve my Dutch.
Lastly, but most importantly, London was amazing. I am glad that I took the opportunity to go for a weekend as I don’t know whether I’ll be able to travel very much outside the Netherlands until this summer. I finish up with Carlton on 14 July or there about’s and then hope to see my sister in Greece. I have not told the English center about that yet. I think it should be OK because I am in charge of my own schedule. As always, Dear reader, you’ll be the first to know.
That’s all she wrote for this Inkreadable installment. But stay tuned. As always, there is more to come.
Inkreadable 