Day 14 - caffeine and how many tenses are there in the English language?

Well today has been all about grammar. We observed our tutor give a two hour lesson on modal verbs and functional language for giving advice. A lively debate arose around the topic of etiquette for interviews with the students getting quite worked up about whether it was OK to chew gum and not say thank you. It was entertaining. This afternoon we looked at time and tenses and why English is so confusing. The fact that time and tenses don't always correlate is what makes it so hard. Present tense though can be used to talk about the past and the future

e.g. Sir Charles dies or The Chelsea Flower Show opens next week.

Is fascinating but the mind boggles a bit. We got asked how many tenses there are in the English language - the simple answer is two - past and present if you only look at word endings as the future tense is not inflected and you rely on auxiliary verbs. If you get technical though with combinations to the continuous, perfect etc. there are 8 but when you put in modal auxiliaries and the passive form there are 16. Yes, complex!

I saw dolphins near Llandudno on my way into school today - so special. Needed more than Ricoffy this morning and went via Bootleggers to imbibe caffeine. My friend Warren picked me up after class and we had a quick coffee and almond croissant at Baked in Bakoven on the way back to my Aunt and Uncle's this evening. There's an interesting debate going on at UCT on white privilege which is linked to the movement to have Cecil Rhodes' statue removed from Jammie Stairs on campus. Some people see it as an abomination but the land UCT is built on is part of Rhodes' estate that was bequeathed. Would have liked to have gone to the debate yesterday on the law campus.

OK need to finish my assignment on my reflections on my teaching and observations of experienced teachers. On a caffeine high - eeeek!
Til soon :)

Day 8 - murdering a rainforest & the Queen

Handed in my first assignment today. Shame one lady on the course lives all the way in Gordon's Bay and it takes her 3 hours to get home. She's averaging one hour of sleep a night - not cool. Another classmate was off sick today which is hectic as you are supposed to have 100% attendance.

We have to do so much photocopying and printing for our lessons and assignments I think we owe the planet a hectare of forest by now. Can now see why my Mum hoards paper as a teacher!

Observed my first live qualified teacher lesson today which was really cool and amazing to see how it can really work well. Also worked with my student on my learner observation task. So glad I can speak French as trying to find out if he learns best through auditory, visual or kinaesthetic input would have been really hard to ascertain with some of the blank faces I got when I tried in English at times. That assignment is due Monday.

Surviving on a caffeine high and marking off the days now till my final teaching prac and hand in. Am really looking forward to the week after the course which I will spend in Howick with friends who were elders at my church back home in Zim. They live in a nature reserve and are close to the Midlands Meander.

OK you're wondering about the murdering the Queen part? We had to read a short text on someone's dream that they poisoned Queen Liz. It was to give an example of a guided discovery approach on how to use the defined and undefined relative clause. Am learning grammar we definitely didn't really cover at school. Think we missed out a chunk on some of the grammatical rules - eeeek. Some of these terms are very new to me.

OK must plan my lesson for tomorrow and get on.

PS - for those in Cape Town, I will be going to Clifton 2 on Friday evening with my cousin Jaimie to watch fire dancers on the beach. Aiming to get there at around 6. Let me know if you would like to join us :)