Study Tour
Jul. 21st, 2008 09:17 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
saffiterDays 1 to 3.
Dealing with Kansai International High School. I've got a group of 12 15-16 year olds. Thankfully I'm not getting too much in the way of attitude...yet.
I've put it behind the cut as you all know my propensity for babble ^____^.
Right, so the kids were supposed to arrive at the school at 7:30am. I got to IH at about 7:45 with the general idea that I was going to get the classroom set up for them while they were eating their breakfast (They would've been on the plane since the night before flying from Japan to here).
First hitch in the plan was finding out that I was placed into the upstairs computer room. The general English students use that room until classes start to check their email and that sort of stuff.
Bugger.
Second hitch in the plan was thanks to dear old/new-ish Jetstar (a budget domestic/international airline here in Australia for those on my friends list not from here). The plane was reallly, really late. They didn't get to the school until 8:30am. So, there I was wandering aimlessly around the staff room of the school waiting for the kids to a) arrive, and then b) finish breakfast so that I could give them their listening, grammar, and speaking test so that they could be placed into their correct level.
I had to feel sorry for them. They've been flying all night to get to Cairns and then the poor buggers have to sit down and take a test in a foreign language almost the second they step off the plane. Kinda a "Hey, welcome to Cairns! Now TEST OR DIE!!!! MUWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAha! *cough*hack* and ha!".
So, the test took up the first two hours of the morning. Poor things finished and promptly fell asleep on it (one girl actually started drooling on her answer sheet). So, imagine this: Sheena sneaking around the classroom trying to drag tests out from underneath sleeping students without waking them (while humming the Mission Impossible theme in her head).
Then they had a half hour break. Cue me zipping into the office to grab the voucher for lunch. After the break I got to try and orientate the kids to the campus (while half of them were falling asleep and the other half were completely distracted by the pretty shiny computers in front of them.
Students: "Oohh... Shiny!Keyboard! *clicky*clicky*tap*tap*tap*"
Me: "STOP PLAYING WITH THE COMPUTERS!!!!"
Next: Lunch at this Filipino restaurant called Jambo mi Amigo. We had to walk down there and this was when I started getting frustrated with them. They've got three walking speads. Slow, snail, and oh-my-god-are-you-dead? It took us 45 minutes to walk what would usually take me just under 10 minutes. GAH!!!!!FLAIL!!!!! *gnashes teeth*
If there's one thing that really just gets my goat up me off it's people who walk painfully slow when I'm trying to get around them (or when I have to walk with them in this case).
I was about ten minutes into the walk when I decided on a game plan for the rest of the two weeks. Tell them that they have to meet me 10 minutes earlier than they're actually supposed to meet me and they might get there on time. It seems to be working (so far).
The food at Jambo's was good, as usual, but I was a little embarrassed by the kids. They had all this food in front of them and barely touched any of it. All that food gone to waste *sigh*.
After lunch I had the joy of trying to drag a bunch of tired Japanese teenagers around the main CBD of Cairns for a "Oooh, look at our city on the waterfront...er...mudflats. Isn't it beautiful" (walk along the esplanade was nixed as the tide was out. Nothing nice about looking at mudflats).
Surprisingly (or unsurprisingly as the case may be) they walked back to IH faster than what they walked from it. They moved from 'oh-my-god-are-you-dead?' to snail.
Oh, I got to test my new bus pass. I wuvs my bus pass! I get free travel now *wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!*
First hitch in the plan was finding out that I was placed into the upstairs computer room. The general English students use that room until classes start to check their email and that sort of stuff.
Bugger.
Second hitch in the plan was thanks to dear old/new-ish Jetstar (a budget domestic/international airline here in Australia for those on my friends list not from here). The plane was reallly, really late. They didn't get to the school until 8:30am. So, there I was wandering aimlessly around the staff room of the school waiting for the kids to a) arrive, and then b) finish breakfast so that I could give them their listening, grammar, and speaking test so that they could be placed into their correct level.
I had to feel sorry for them. They've been flying all night to get to Cairns and then the poor buggers have to sit down and take a test in a foreign language almost the second they step off the plane. Kinda a "Hey, welcome to Cairns! Now TEST OR DIE!!!! MUWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAha! *cough*hack* and ha!".
So, the test took up the first two hours of the morning. Poor things finished and promptly fell asleep on it (one girl actually started drooling on her answer sheet). So, imagine this: Sheena sneaking around the classroom trying to drag tests out from underneath sleeping students without waking them (while humming the Mission Impossible theme in her head).
Then they had a half hour break. Cue me zipping into the office to grab the voucher for lunch. After the break I got to try and orientate the kids to the campus (while half of them were falling asleep and the other half were completely distracted by the pretty shiny computers in front of them.
Students: "Oohh... Shiny!Keyboard! *clicky*clicky*tap*tap*tap*"
Me: "STOP PLAYING WITH THE COMPUTERS!!!!"
Next: Lunch at this Filipino restaurant called Jambo mi Amigo. We had to walk down there and this was when I started getting frustrated with them. They've got three walking speads. Slow, snail, and oh-my-god-are-you-dead? It took us 45 minutes to walk what would usually take me just under 10 minutes. GAH!!!!!FLAIL!!!!! *gnashes teeth*
If there's one thing that really just gets my goat up me off it's people who walk painfully slow when I'm trying to get around them (or when I have to walk with them in this case).
I was about ten minutes into the walk when I decided on a game plan for the rest of the two weeks. Tell them that they have to meet me 10 minutes earlier than they're actually supposed to meet me and they might get there on time. It seems to be working (so far).
The food at Jambo's was good, as usual, but I was a little embarrassed by the kids. They had all this food in front of them and barely touched any of it. All that food gone to waste *sigh*.
After lunch I had the joy of trying to drag a bunch of tired Japanese teenagers around the main CBD of Cairns for a "Oooh, look at our city on the waterfront...er...mudflats. Isn't it beautiful" (walk along the esplanade was nixed as the tide was out. Nothing nice about looking at mudflats).
Surprisingly (or unsurprisingly as the case may be) they walked back to IH faster than what they walked from it. They moved from 'oh-my-god-are-you-dead?' to snail.
Oh, I got to test my new bus pass. I wuvs my bus pass! I get free travel now *wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!*
Day two saw us going to Green Island (part of the Great Barrier Reef that's only about an hour by boat from Cairns) waaay too early in the morning. I was at the marina by ten to 8 in the morning to make sure the students could find me if they were early. We still had ones turn up late, though thankfully we all made it onto the boat in time.
This trip was less hectic than my last time there. Not one of the kids wanted to hire snorkelling gear as none of them were going swimming (why you go to the reef and not go snorkelling I'll never understand. Half the fun is popping your head up to have someone else come up to you and ask "Hey, did you see the shark swimming behind you?" o.O ).
So, trip over I dozed. We got to the island and wandered around for a bit (small island. Though I've never actually walked it all the way around before) and then headed back to the catamaran for our glass bottom boat trip. On the way there I saw a decent sized shark swimming around where people were snorkelling and what could possibly have been another shark hiding in the coral. o.O, yikes!
There were these weird fish sticking themselves to the glass of the boat. I didn't have a clue what they hell they were (later found out that they were Sucker Fish. Boy were they UGLY!!!). The water was pretty clear and the coral was really cool to see. There were lots of fish, too... and those Sucker fish were determined to stay suckered to the glass for the whole 30 minutes! Persistant buggers, I'll give them that.
Not much more to report about what I did at the island. I camped out in a deck chair by the resort pool and dozed for a while. The trip back was probably the highlight of the day. We had to stop the catamaran for about 15 minutes because of a pod of very playful humpback whales. They were slapping their fins in the water, flicking their tails, jumping up out of the water... it was so cool!!
This trip was less hectic than my last time there. Not one of the kids wanted to hire snorkelling gear as none of them were going swimming (why you go to the reef and not go snorkelling I'll never understand. Half the fun is popping your head up to have someone else come up to you and ask "Hey, did you see the shark swimming behind you?" o.O ).
So, trip over I dozed. We got to the island and wandered around for a bit (small island. Though I've never actually walked it all the way around before) and then headed back to the catamaran for our glass bottom boat trip. On the way there I saw a decent sized shark swimming around where people were snorkelling and what could possibly have been another shark hiding in the coral. o.O, yikes!
There were these weird fish sticking themselves to the glass of the boat. I didn't have a clue what they hell they were (later found out that they were Sucker Fish. Boy were they UGLY!!!). The water was pretty clear and the coral was really cool to see. There were lots of fish, too... and those Sucker fish were determined to stay suckered to the glass for the whole 30 minutes! Persistant buggers, I'll give them that.
Not much more to report about what I did at the island. I camped out in a deck chair by the resort pool and dozed for a while. The trip back was probably the highlight of the day. We had to stop the catamaran for about 15 minutes because of a pod of very playful humpback whales. They were slapping their fins in the water, flicking their tails, jumping up out of the water... it was so cool!!
Day three was today. To start the day off I had to teach them for 3 hours in the morning. Normally I wouldn't be teaching them, but they needed a relief teacher for that class this morning and they wouldn't have anyone else in there until tomorrow so it was just 8 of them in Pre-Intermediate (the other 4 were in different classes on the other campus. This is an intergrated study tour, which means that they take their English lessons in the morning with the General English students). Because it was just them I decided to do stuff on what they'd done already and what they were going to see today.
Today was a trip to the Cairns Tropical Zoo.
So, first two hours was on Australian animals and different words and things like that related to animals. There was speaking and reading and much flubbing of the lesson plan *grins*.
After the thirty minute break we played a game. I stuck one animal that they'd learnt about in the first session on their back and they had to guess what it was. Thing is, they could only ask questions with a yes/no answer. They had fun.
Lunch, for me, was a rushed affair. Chinese takeout (and I was so craving Sushi *pouts*) from across the road that was scarfed down in 10 minutes 'cause I had to meet the students downstairs at 12:50 so that they could catch a bus to the zoo (I'd wasted a fair bit of time tracking down vouchers and keys and the like and trying to work out what they hell I'm doing tomorrow and the next day). Miracle of miracles I actually managed to get them all organised early! And the bus driver was early, too, so we got to leave early meaning we got to the zoo early...and you get the idea *laughs*.
They had a choice when they got there. They could wander around as one big group, or they could wander around on their own (or in smaller groups) and then meet up at the gift shop at 4:00pm. They decided on the latter, but one or two stuck with me for the day and we had a lot of fun. If you're ever at Cairns Tropical Zoo I can definately suggest seeing the free flight bird show. They have different birds of prey from the area flying around and swooping over the audience (I got hit by a wing at one point, that's how close they go to the audience!) while the presenter gives information about the birds that we're seeing... and the cockatoo is a showoff. Not quite so much as the two black cockatoos, but it's still a showoff! The crocodile show is kind of underwhelming, especially if you ever got to see Steve Irwin in person doing a croc show.
Today was a trip to the Cairns Tropical Zoo.
So, first two hours was on Australian animals and different words and things like that related to animals. There was speaking and reading and much flubbing of the lesson plan *grins*.
After the thirty minute break we played a game. I stuck one animal that they'd learnt about in the first session on their back and they had to guess what it was. Thing is, they could only ask questions with a yes/no answer. They had fun.
Lunch, for me, was a rushed affair. Chinese takeout (and I was so craving Sushi *pouts*) from across the road that was scarfed down in 10 minutes 'cause I had to meet the students downstairs at 12:50 so that they could catch a bus to the zoo (I'd wasted a fair bit of time tracking down vouchers and keys and the like and trying to work out what they hell I'm doing tomorrow and the next day). Miracle of miracles I actually managed to get them all organised early! And the bus driver was early, too, so we got to leave early meaning we got to the zoo early...and you get the idea *laughs*.
They had a choice when they got there. They could wander around as one big group, or they could wander around on their own (or in smaller groups) and then meet up at the gift shop at 4:00pm. They decided on the latter, but one or two stuck with me for the day and we had a lot of fun. If you're ever at Cairns Tropical Zoo I can definately suggest seeing the free flight bird show. They have different birds of prey from the area flying around and swooping over the audience (I got hit by a wing at one point, that's how close they go to the audience!) while the presenter gives information about the birds that we're seeing... and the cockatoo is a showoff. Not quite so much as the two black cockatoos, but it's still a showoff! The crocodile show is kind of underwhelming, especially if you ever got to see Steve Irwin in person doing a croc show.
And that's what I've been up to since Thursday. Tomorrow is a quiet day (shopping in Cairns Central with the kids) and Wednesday is going to be INSANE!!
Oh, conversation of the day:
Students: Are you French?
Me: ....no. I'm Australian.
Students: No, are you French- Australian?
Me:....... um... no. I'm Irish/Dutch-Australian
Students: Oh.... you look like Marie Antoinette.
Me: I should hope not. She got her head cut off! I like my head where it is, thank you. Not... *mimes head being chopped off and then pretends to kick it out the window*
Students: Well, you do. She was French.
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Date: 2008-07-23 08:42 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-07-23 09:57 am (UTC)Yeah, I've got Facebook. I'll send you a message on lj with my addy.