I sometimes imagine, dear reader, that teaching must on some level be a little bit like cryptography. Hence this week’s title. In my last post, I was a bit worried about teaching the second of my colleague’s Intermediate Business English classes with TEC. This week’s lesson was equally as quiet as the last week. It seems that the students don’t really engage and discuss as much as I thought they might in an Intermediate Business English class. But maybe it is I who is wrong, I figured that if I gave them enough to do through the class that would keep them busy, and take the spotlight off of me which is always a good thing. Which is what I managed to do with a million and one exercises to complete from the book as well as extra exercises that I gave them from other sources that I have. As a result, I did not lose my cool not even a little, not even at all, in the words of my beloved Dr. Suess.
Over in VIPKid land rumors are flying as to how much of a shit show it has become. They are apparently laying off 30% of their backroom staff. Teachers have already started complaining that tech-support is lacking, but to my mind, it was always lacking. There really wasn’t anything that tech-support was doing that made any difference at all. At least not to me. Then again, the amount of times that I call the fireman is few because frankly, I could care less if the student shows up or not and I’m perfectly happy to sit with the camera or covered and my microphone muted and wait for them. It doesn’t bother me in the least. Much much more worrisome to my mind is the fact that new teachers from the state of California will not be accepted into VIPKid. Which frankly seems to be a bit of an overreaction on the company’s part. On the bright side, however, that might mean more students for those of us that are already existing teachers whether from California or not. I’m going to have to wait this out.
A couple of weekends ago I went to Scotland and came home very very sick. As a result, teaching has been almost impossible. I don’t think I’ve ever taught with so bad a loss of voice as I did this past week. Thank you, so much, my beloved Edinburgh for sending me home with a gift that keeps on giving.
Because of that, there has been no writing, no Writers Group, and really not much of anything besides vegging out on the couch watching Poledark and other assorted series that are ending. Also, having 23 people over for Thanksgiving dinner did not help my voice situation in the least. I am hopeful that it clears up by Friday in time for leaving for the US. But with my luck, dear reader, I’ll probably just get another cold on the plane.
That’s all she wrote for this Inkreadable installment. But stay tuned. As always, there is more to come.
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