Wednesday, August 7, 2019

#30daysofvisibility: A day in the life of...

Watching EFLtalks (a moment of my life in front of my laptop!)

Day 8 of the challenge today and his time I can't just re-post an old blog or just take a picture for Instagram. This time I have to write.
I have described my typical day in previous blogs and today as I was going through them, I realised that every year has been different. Every season has been different and I guess that's the life of a freelancer.
Here is a post of my typical summer day a couple of years ago. 
As Josette (the creator of this challenge) writes, this prompt is to give people a behind-the-scenes view of what a day in your life at home or at work is like.... A chance to share the reality of what goes on.

Well as I said, summer is definitely different from winter. There are summers when I don't work for 3 months and other summers when I have a full time job.
This summer is the first case. I just have one skype student 2 times a week. Other than that, I am "vacaying".
When you don't work it is not actually a vacation. I try to catch up with everything that goes on in my family, take care of my dog and my cats, go to the gym, design exercise plans for my friends (at the gym),  read, watch webinars, take part in blog challenges, get inspired for the next school year.
Here is a post with some resourses on teacher development (and what I had planned do during the summer) and another one on what I have managed so far.

What's going on though when I am not on oblgatory summer vacation?
As I said every year is different. The school year that passed was a really challenging one.
I had a variety of students of different levels and subjects:

  • a German beginners' class of computer specialists
  • an EFL junior class with 8 year olds
  • a DaF junior class with 6-7 year olds
  • Skype students (abroad) learning German or business English / or conversational language
  • IELTS students
  • Young Adults taking (C1/C2)  German / English exams
  • Teen students taking (B1/B2) German / English exams
  • Business English - helping managers with business presentations and communication skills
  • Helping foreign people in Greece learning Greek


What does this all mean? First of all, my teaching life was far from boring and secondly that all I did was research, planning, reading and preparing, even when I didn't have to teach.
Most preparation happens on Sundays.
Mondays to Saturdays are like this:

  • Wake up at 6pm
  • Walk the dog
  • Cook / do housework
  • Take care of my "adopted strays" (this will be another blogpost, I am sure)
  • Go to my morning classes (usually the adults) 
  • Have lunch with my son, catch up / wash dishes/ take dog out again 
  • Go to my afternoon classes / students
  • Depending on the day, do skype lessons or go to the gym
  • Walk dog / watch Netflix /fall asleep on the laptop keyboard
Tiring? Yes! No personal life? Yes!
Will next school year be the same? Probably yes, but who knows?

Life is a challenge!

PS. You can see Day 7 post over here!
                           Day 6
                           Day 5


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