Another Blissful Week in Prague

When I first started my courses out at Proctor & Gamble, I was told, more than once, that my students would not be progress tested. This was a blessing, as it gave me the opportunity to toss the book aside, and instead of reading about how "Smiles can make the world a better place" I could bring in articles that were actually relevant. In my morning class there, my student expressed a desire to take the FCE, so for the past month or so I've been prepping her for the exam. I guess the best way to describe non-progress-tested courses is that you can teach them anything you think they may need instead of sticking to the coursebook.



Fastforward to the text I received Monday night from the course managers that informed me that the courses were progress tested, and the information I received, and have been believing for the past few months, was an oversight. My poor students were facing an exam that included sections that we hadn't covered (honestly, who needs to sort the various uses of phrases with "get"). I explained the situation to the course manager who told me the only way around this is for me to write four 90 minute exams based on my lessons instead of just getting the pre-arranged exams. I guess that's the only fair way to do it for my students. I hope they like it.



Between now and then, however, my week has gotten steadily better. My Thursday morning student, Jan, cancelled in advance which left me workless, blissfully so, for Thursday. I spent much of it writing tests, lesson planning, and jogging, but took the time to walk around a little bit. I've been trying to do that more, Lindsey has too. With people talking about when they're planning to leave, it sort of forces you to face the temorary nature of our lives here, and so whenever there's a nice night out, Lindsey and I have been sauntering along nearly every single street in Prague 1. We may just branch out to the other neighborhoods when the weather gets nicer.