Productive Times

This has been by far the most productive week I’ve had in terms of dealing with practical issues mainly relating to the prospect of staying in Austria longer than originally planned. My Comenius contract is for ten months (the school year, Sept-June); meanwhile, I’ve been searching for possibilities once this has ended. 

After networking as much as possible, I landed an interview with an interesting European primary school, with the main language of instruction being English. I was invited back to teach a 15-minute trial lesson followed by a second interview. I jumped at the very promising chance of a job possibility but also found myself facing the challenge of teaching within such a short time frame; the only instructions for which were: no games, songs or introductions allowed, only normal teaching and something connected to the English language. That narrows it down a bit. All I knew was that I’d be teaching for 15 minutes in a third grade class (children aged 8 or 9) and there would be 18 children in the class. This school has a cap on the number of children admitted, with 18 being the maximum per class. Ideal. 

I decided that I would use the famous children’s book, The Gruffalo, as I anticipated that most (if not all) of the children would know the book. My idea was that they would first receive a black and white version of the Gruffalo character and describe him without using colours. After receiving some descriptions and writing them on the board, they could then also describe the colours, using a coloured version I’d pinned on the board. I underlined the descriptive words used, which they identified as adjectives.

The next task was to create a ‘girl Gruffalo’ using as many adjectives as possible and I would use their descriptions to draw the new character on a mini chalkboard, without letting them see. The children responded really well to this activity and most of them contributed something. A few I had to settle as they were a little too talkative but it was a good opportunity to show how I manage a class, as the Principal of the school was watching. After the girl Gruffalo was complete, I showed them what I had drawn according to the descriptions they had given. It was rather amusing and I could use the new character as a way to end the short lesson by saying that the girl Gruffalo must go now and says goodbye! 

In the end, it was a success and I enjoyed the short time I had to teach normally, or as normal as possible in that situation. It has been a long time since I’ve been able to teach a class ‘normally’, meaning that they understand everything I say and there is no need to translate or repeat things many times because of the language barrier. The language barrier exists in my Comenius teaching so either I can teach small groups myself, or the whole class with the help of the regular class teacher. In the European school, the interview following the trial lesson also went very smoothly and I was asked if I would be interested in teaching there from March onwards, just one day a week while I finish my Comenius contract, and then hopefully more full time from September 2014. This seems ideal for me, although we still need to discuss the details but that will happen after Christmas; now is a very busy time for schools!

Now that the idea of staying in Austria for a while longer seems to be strengthening, I have taken action this week to facilitate this. Firstly, I officially registered my residence here at the immigration office. This is necessary if you want to stay more than three months. It is basically just a way of making money in my opinion, but at least I think it’s a bit cheaper if you’re an EU citizen. It cost me 30€. It is rather strange system here though because before this registration, you must apply for a ‘Meldezettel’ which is probably the single most important document required for everything here: it registers you to an Austrian address to which you can then receive post, open a bank account or set up a contract. Supposedly, one must apply for a Meldezettel within 3 working days of living in Austria, which is rather unrealistic if you ask me. 

Nevertheless, having completed the necessary bureaucracy, I decided it’s time to improve my internet connection, because since I’ve been living in Vienna I have been using a prepaid internet stick which not only limits my internet usage, but is also uneconomical. It works out cheaper and more efficient to set up my own internet contract to have wireless in my flat. I had originally tried asking the neighbours if I could use theirs and pay something towards it, like I did in Lithuania, but they insist that they don’t use wireless. Either they just don’t want me to use it and didn’t want to say that, or this country is as behind the times as it sometimes seems.

Regardless, in order to set up a direct debit for the internet, I had to open an Austrian bank account. I was pleased to find that this was rather straightforward; after booking an appointment online, I went to the bank, was offered tea or coffee, and appointed a personal consultant whom had already prepared all the necessary documents. After opening the account, I was able to create an internet contract with the help of a friend who works for an internet provider. I’m very lucky that I happen to meet the right people who make everything so much easier. So, a date has been set for the installation of wireless in my apartment and I shall start the New Year with a new internet connection!

In the meantime, I have been trying to bring some technology into my Comenius work by showing the 4^th grade children a video by Matti, a good Finnish friend of mine and also a Comenius Assistant in Norway, and his Norwegian students. The idea is to create our own video in reply but to do this I first had to send permission slips to all the parents and wait for all of them to be returned (which of course takes some time, especially as there are always a couple of kids who forget!) 

Then, to show the video, I had to locate the only ‘beamer’ in the school (what I call a projector, they call a beamer, because a projector to them is an old-school, overhead projector which is still commonly used.) It is kept in a locked cupboard in the staffroom but unfortunately not many people knew which cupboard, or where the key is kept. Eventually though, I managed to make it work using my own laptop with the projector. The kids showed a lot of interest and we set about making our own video. So far, we have done all the preparation, the groups and topics have been organised and everyone knows more-or-less what they will say. 

Now it’s just a matter of ‘shooting’ the video. There have been several obstacles in the way of this, from unexpected events in school (like a visiting theatre company) to sick days. Therefore, it may be the case that I’ll have to make multiple videos with the small groups and put it together as one. I have been learning how Movie Maker functions so I’m ready for this possibility! Regardless, I plan (and hope) to complete it by the end of next week. Fingers crossed the productive times continue!