Oaxaca: The Joys of Job Searching!

After failing to find a job teaching English in the capital, I set my sights on getting work in Oaxaca. The town seemed lively and had a buzz that suggested English could be in demand. Here's another short story about the delights of living and travelling in Mexico.

Oaxaca's Valley
Photo by phylevn

No wonder Uvlad had fussed about the hostel. The toilets stank of sewage, the walls were covered in mould, and the roof leaked. When I woke my sleeping bag was drenched from the overnight downpour. I left Uvlad to pack up his things and nipped out to find somewhere more liveable.

"I’ve found a better hostel round the corner, same price and there’s a funny Argentinean geezer on reception," I said to Uvlad.

"Do they offer a free shower with every bed too?"  

"Yeah, very funny wise guy, come on let’s go before someone else nicks the beds."

The hostel on Av Independencia was much cleaner, had a pool table, two hammocks, there were less beds per square metre, and no dripping roof.

Victor, from Buenos Aires, was running the place during the day. He was just under 6ft tall, with jet-black hair and eager wide eyes. He’d been travelling round Mexico for a couple of years and was hoping to save up some money to go to England. Being an Argentinean in Mexico was more difficult than he’d imagined.

DELTA Diary: LSA 4 - Am I glad that’s over!

For the first time in about four months I woke up last Saturday morning without having an LSA hanging over my shoulders. I feel at peace. That anxious pang of the final LSA lurking round the corner has disappeared. It’s time to start living again. I don’t want to put you off from doing a DELTA, far from it, it’s been an amazing experience, but be warned; it will take over your life!

Peace at last!
Photo by bitzi

Thinking back…

I started reading for this DELTA about a year ago. I remember having a chat with one of the trainers and being unsure whether I wanted to make the sacrifice. Having almost finished my book, I didn’t want to give up writing, I was enjoying blogging and not having any real stress in my life, but something inside told me to give it a go.

The TEFL industry in Spain is booming at the moment, but with the rest of the country suffering (20% unemployment) I wanted to make sure my job, and career, was protected. An email from my DOS in England helped with the final decision “If the shit hits the fan in Spain, then the DELTA will give you more security, you can get a job anywhere in the world after that.”

So the decision was made. I begrudgingly gave up writing, got stuck into the reading, and prepared myself for one of the hardest years of my life.

Excerpt 7: Penniless in Copacabana

After getting struck with altitude sickness while trekking to Machu Picchu, spending a day by the world's highest lake, Titicaca, in Bolivia was a godsend, even if there was a powercut and I had no money. Here's the seventh excerpt from my book.

Absolutely Marvellous: Lake Titicaca-Bolivia
Photo by Ivan Mlinaric

I’d heard good things about Bolivia: hospitable locals, cheaper accommodation and food, a bustling historical capital, and an excellent place to visit the Amazon. I was excited about seeing a new country and wanted to relax and fully recover from the altitude sickness. However, just as in Ecuador and Peru, my first day in Bolivia had complications.

 “Donde esta un banco - Where’s a bank?” I said to the hostel owner in Copacabana, Titicaca’s lakeside town. I felt drowsy after another sleepless overnight journey, this time because the bus driver’s loud trashy pop music had kept me awake. The white haired hostel owner stared and frowned. “Un banco por favor?”

“No banco, no, no,” he said, wagging his finger. Was he saying there wasn’t a bank in Copacabana? I hoped not. After leaving Cusco in a rush I had no money.

“Banco, no tengo dinero,” I said, showing him my bank card.

“Ah, okay,” he said. I sighed and waited for him to signal where to go. “No, no banco; problema. No hay luz.” I thought luz meant lights, not electricity. A power cut had struck Copacabana, which meant even the cash points were out of order. What was I going to do?

Oaxaca: An energizing start!

If you ever travel to Mexico, then you have to stop by in the enchanting town of Oaxaca. I stayed there for a couple of weeks trying to find work teaching English, but I ended up working at the bus station as one of those annoying people who try to get you to stay at a hostel. Not the most glamorous of jobs, but I just wanted to live in a place for a while. Here's the first short story of my time in Oaxaca.

Not a bad place to chill for two weeks!
Photo of the Zocalo in Oaxaca by Big Dubya

I’d become stale in the hectic capital and the six-hour bus journey to Oaxaca gave me fresh hope. The trip began on a long straight motorway through dry landscape until we ascended the mountains on a thin curved road. Overgrown trees blocked the views, but occasionally mountains flashed by. I’d never been as high up before, nor as close to the mountain edge, and I felt giddy looking down. The roller coaster ride ended when we reached a peak and descended into the delightful valley of Oaxaca. I felt energized and hoped I could find work teaching English.

I was expecting Oaxaca to be more laid back than the capital, but the sleepy city was the ‘Joey’ of Friends. A welcome sign saying ‘How you doing?’ would have been appropriate.

The Oaxacans must have been taking a siesta to escape the heat because the streets were deserted on the stroll down from the bus station. The red and yellow houses and joyful kids playing and laughing, reminded me of Coyoacan. Some shouted ‘hello’ and waved as I trundled past. Kids never greeted me in the capital.

Tricks and activities for improving FCE students' listening!

A massive percentage of FCE students fail because of listening. Listening is hard for English language learners, and rightly so. In the real world, when do you have to listen to recordings and answer complex questions, which deliberately try to trick you?

I feel sorry for English students who struggle with listening. How many times have you heard your students say “Why do they speak so fast?” or “That is impossible to understand!” In the real world we can normally see the person we are listening to, we can ask them to repeat words if necessary, and we can ask for clarification.

Know the feeling in the listening exam?
Photo by rileyroxx

That’s not so in an FCE listening exam. So what can we do to help our students? Here are a few tricks and activities I’ve picked up on my DELTA, while researching, and also some of my own ideas on how to improve students' listening skills.

Part 1

Multiple choice – 8 questions – short unrelated extracts of about 30 seconds each – 3 options.

This question is all about the distractors. The three options are normally mentioned in one way or another, but two try to trick the students.

• Get students to underline the key words in the questions before they listen. This helps them focus on what to listen to, but also allows them to build up an image in their mind of what to expect when the listening starts (activate schemata). If students have an image in their mind they can relate better to the recording and also what they hear is less of a shock.
• Let students read the transcript before they listen to the first question and discuss where the distractors are. Get students to discuss exactly why they are distractors. After listening to the next questions students discuss their answers and why the other two options were distractors.
• Alternatively, you could let the students listen first without the options. I find this helps them concentrate more on the main content and they get less confused. I’ve also tried this where half the class listen without the options, and the other half do, and then vice versa. I find that most students then prefer to listen the first time without looking at the options.
• Ever noticed how sometimes two of the actual options are mentioned in the recording? For example, the other day we had a question where the three options were A- confused B-annoyed C-disappointed. In the recording the words ‘confused’ and ‘annoyed’ were said, but as distractors. So it’s normally when the word is not actually mentioned when it’s the answer.
• Students can also chat about the options before they listen and try to work out which ones are similar so they can be prepared for the distractors. For example, a question the other day had the options A-tennis, B-basketball, and C-football. They are all ball games, but basketball and football are team games. By helping students notice similarities in the options can help because the correct answer is normally between those two.