Week Three of TEFL Classes // 30 days to Thailand

Using Stress as Your Friend

I'm getting into a much better rhythm with this course work and pre-trip anxiety. I feel it fueling me to do my absolute best on this class to make sure I don't screw up when I fly half way across the world to do a job I have zero experience with. The stress before this trip reminds me of a TED Talk I watched months ago that claims stress can be our friend. Goes against everything we've learned about stress and anxiety in our lives right? We've always been told stress will lead to a plethora of health problems and potentially kill us prematurely. Kelly McGonigal tells us in her video to use the cues we get from feeling stressed out (pounding heart, breathing faster) and view them as helpful, as preparing our body to face the challenge before us. She explains most of the premature deaths and ailments caused by stressed are actually caused by the belief that stress is bad for you. When you change your mind about stress, you can change your body's reaction to stress.

It's a really spectacular thing to reframe your understanding of stress in the moments it hits you, and it's not as easy as it sounds. I'm trying my best to use all the energy swirling inside me that is trying to send up red flags as my body prepping for this once in a life time adventure. It's also incredibly cathartic to write it all out. So maybe this can be a little piece of information to help anyone feeling stressed out, and use it as your friend.

Check out the video:

Week Two of TEFL Classes

I have a piece of advice for anyone taking these classes:

Don't take the quizzes before you finish the readings. 

Seems like a silly thing to do, why try and do the homework before you've heard the lesson? Of course I didn't follow the logical thing. 

Hello everyone, I am a college graduate who thought she could just skip the last 50% of the reading material on Pronunciation, Stress, & Intonation and take all 5 quizzes without a problem. I shouldn't have a problem, right? I am a fluent English speaker and I know how to, well, speak English.

Obviously I didn't learn English as a foreign language and a lot of components English speakers inherently understand are really hard for foreign speakers to pick up and understand. Like the "schwa".

Turns out the "schwa" wasn't part of my childhood curriculum and I tragically made a stunning 50% on the quiz after skipping the reading. Maybe I'm not the only native English speaker who didn't know about "schwa" before this class, but lord do I do now. I had to redeem myself from that embarrassing quiz attempt (that I only had one shot at mind you). "Schwa" refers to an unstressed vowel sound, like teacher, library, Sunday, woman, begin, and so on. I distinctly remember being taught that certain words are said a certain way because that's just the way it is. It's not pronounced TEACH-ER, stressing both syllables, it's TEACH-er. 

So here lies a big, new, exiting challenge for this teach abroad adventure:

Teaching students these intuitive aspects of English I've always known, but I couldn't explain to you why I know it. 

Thank you TEFL class for seriously getting my butt into gear. Week 2 = check.

Week One of TEFL Classes

Talk about an abrupt schedule change. Today I actually said the words, "I can't, I have to finish my homework." I tell you, after graduation from a college that consumed most of my time with it's high demand for quizzes and papers and tests, I didn't think I'd be doing homework again in a long time.

But it's been overwhelmingly helpful. Just this first week I got a crash course in all the grammar information I've basically ever learned in my entire educational career, and I'm a fluent English speaker mind you. I most definitely google search by my side during the homework assignment.

As nerve wracking as teaching English in a foreign country is to me, my brain seems to be buzzing from all of this knew information I'm processing. After completing my work for the first week, my mind is so happy with me doing something new and stimulating! But that new job stress is definitely settling in more (I won't even get started on all the wacky dreams I've had about moving to Thailand). We all know that feeling when you start a new job, and you are absolutely petrified when you arrive for the first day, just praying you won't screw up. As high as the stress is, our bodies and minds are preparing us each day to do a little bit better and remember our mistakes, quite a few in my case. It only took me a couple weeks at my craft cocktail job to not screw up the table numbers at least once a day... small victories.

But that's what makes us all human, we have vast ups and downs, self doubt and reassurance, and we always make it through the day. That self confidence that arises once a challenge is locked down is what I'm ready for, because this adventure is going to be crazy.