"The dodgiest bar in Barceloner"

WHAT I LEARNED TODAY:
1. Chilean roommates do not appreciate it when you wash the kitchen sponges in the washing machine. French roommates do.
2. There's no understanding a Spanish speaker when he's been smoking the reefer and washing his jockeys.

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So I must say I am learning more at Oxford House College than I think I ever did in any of my formal Ed. courses at U of I. Of course, it helps that we are hands-on teaching students and are at school every waking hour of the day. I am extremely pleased because I have always struggled with how to be a good teacher without imposing my methods of understanding on my students. The whole philosophy underlying OHC is to let students discover language for themselves. So basically, the OHC staff is facilitating our discovery of how to facilitate our students' discovery of English. This sounds ridiculous, but is an AMAZING experience. It has also taught me a lot about myself as a learner of Spanish and where I need to go from here in my studies.

The best experience yet has been the unknown language lessons. We were taught 4 beginner level Japanese courses (in Japanese alone) so that we could understand how our students felt in our classrooms and to observe how we can be better teachers for them. It was so crazy awesome the way this Welsh lady Cat used body language, extreme positive energy, drawings, handouts, tapes and pantomime alone to convey vocabulary, grammar, pronunciation and more. What's more, it was fun and we actually learned some Japanese (!).

In the classroom I feel that I am improving rapidly. My biggest weakness is that I talk too much when explaining (go figure). I've been working on finding alternate methods of explaining (pantomime, check questions that lead the students to the answer, etc.). They are coming along well. On the whole though, the students and I have a great time in class and they have learned a lot. It's just a matter of getting even better.

On a different topic, my roommate Maria spontaneously moved out. (?). I didn't see her all week but thought it was only because I was at school all the time and she was at work/out partying. Alas, I finally noticed that the poster was missing from her door and asked Virginie about it....and my suspicions were confirmed. Evidently, Maria wanted to go someplace where the roommates were more okay with all-day and night partying. So, during a single hour while Virginie and Olivier were in his room studying with their French buds, Maria silently and stealthily emptied her entire room. She was there when they began studying and by the time they were ready to take their test head-on, she was gone.....so much for our arrangement to teach each other our respective languages. Merde.

And as for classmate social life, it is super excellent. We all went out after class on Wednesday and Thursday and then Friday was insane. We were all melting with exhaustion by 10 when we left class, but stupidly decided it was a good idea to go out clubbing with the other TEFL class (we are 2 classes of 17 each). After an hour or so in Plaça Reial, thirty or so of us trecked through winding alleys in search of a dance joint, only to lose group after group of classmates. 2 went in search of drugs, 3 decided to stay in an authentic Spanish bar with hanging animal quarters for sale, 4 more sat down under the boardwalk to take a breather never to get back up again, and the rest of us followed Gerard (one of our advanced English students) hanging on to the hope that he actually knew of a good dance club, a hope that became more tattered with every step we took farther from downtown into the beach area of Barceloneta. Ultimately, we ended up at (as Kelly called it) "the dodgiest bar in all of Barceloner." Between the 10 neon flashing signs that read "tequila" and the fact that the "like a Prayer" remix was played twice, I was thanking my lucky stars that the Cuba Libres in Spain are made with 4 parts rum to 1 part coke. The night ended with a small group of us dancing in my family room, while Kelly and Rina, who got lost on the way to my place, ended up on the metro at 5am when it re-opened with their shoes in one hand and cans of beer they had bought from a street vendor for the rest of us in the other.

Saturday was far tamer. We took a train to a town south of Barcelona, famous for its amazing beach, Castelldefels Platja. The beach was the most fantastic I've ever been to, surrounded by mountains, practically void of people, silky sand, and crystal clear water. We played frisbee for hours, swam our hearts out and ate gelato as if it were a course requirement. Smiles all around.

Today, it's back to business as the group is coming over at 6pm to work on our unknown language journals and lesson plans for the week.