ace ventura pet detective

so we have finished our first week on the tefl course, and are still alive. has been very interesting so far, i think it gets much more intense from now on as we have some elective lessons, and have to teach mon-thurs 45 mins a day, which is slightly scary right now.

on friday afternoon we went to the universidad de guadalajara, 10 minutes away on the bus. juan`s friend ventura (renamed ace ventura pet detective - i think he liked his new name) teaches an english class there, so we went to observe it. on the timetable juan had given us it was called leyes, which means law, so we were assuming it would be a very technical and intense class dealing with the intricacies of english legal language. how wrong were we. around 20 of the 40 students expected turned up, and ventura and his co-teacher juan (who we re-named juan2 to distinguish him from juan1) gave out some song lyrics and the lesson consisted of listening to the songs then singing them, then we divided into 3 groups, and me, jayne and skye went through the lyrics and meaning of the songs with our groups. it was all very informal and relaxed and fun. the songs were george michael careless whispers, eric clapton wonderful tonight (my favourite) and 4 non blondes what`s going on (nobody really like this one, but ventura likes them). last week he had done abba`s dancing queen with them. so now we are all thinking how fun it would be to work in a university..

then we took ventura for a beer at our local bar on the way home. he only had 1 beer, he is very sensible. we had quite a few and then found the absolute best burger stall in town (we didn`t exactly find it, some of the other tefl teachers took us to it). it was 19 pesos (90p) for a burger with salad and chillies and sauce, and it really was the best burger i`ve ever had. there was hot dogs too.

yesterday me and jayne went on a day trip to colima, a town an hour from here. it was really really hot there, so we went to get an orange juice, then decided we should not be in a town, so we got another bus to manzanillo, a coastal town further down. we swam in the sea, which was lovely and walked along the beach. manzanillo is a port, so we looked at all the crates piled up in the dock. there was a big alcoholics anonymous stall in the park, which seemed a bit inconspicuous. the town itself is a bit pokey, but if you go further round the coast there are lots of fancy hotels and beaches, i think we just went the wrong direction. as usual. we got a bus back, which weirdly took 3.5 hours compared to the 2 hours it had taken to get there. we saw loads of fireflies en route, which i`ve never seen before but jayne had. i was expecting to see lots of things going on for day of the dead, but didn`t in fact see anything. i think there are certain towns you can go to that make a much bigger deal of it, but you have to plan your trip months in advance as they get really busy.

i had a vaguely drunken conversation on friday with nicki, one of the teachers at our school (ie he teaches english there now, having done the course we are doing now there - it both trains teachers and teaches english), about grammar again... i was trying to explain that how can you not teach grammar when grammar is essentially the ingredients of english, the same way bread is made of wheat, language is made of grammar. when you correct their pronunciation, that is teaching grammar (phonetics), when you teach meanings of new words that is grammar (semantics) etc etc. i was trying not to be too drunkenly pedantic, as i do also agree with the fact that you shouldn`t make things revolve around grammar. i think the fact is is that the students should learn grammar without explicitly being taught it. which i can understand the thinking behind, but it does slightly annoy me - what is so wrong with teaching the technical workings of a language, for me it enhances understanding, and why dumb it down and not expect that they will like or understand it? for me the jury´s still out on this, and i`m sure this won`t be the last you hear about it.

other things that have happened this week
i have borrowed a bike and have ridden around a bit, nothing too strenuous. there is a bike ride round the town every thursday night where they close the roads, i´ll do that next week. i am going to try to cycle to the laguna this afternoon, apparently it`s around 3k away and on a straight road, so i shouldn`t get too lost. you can`t swim in the laguna as there are too many reeds and weeds.

when i was eating dinner one night at home, and really enjoying it, she asked if i wanted another tortilla, i said yes please, and passed her my plate. i still had some chile relleno (stuffed pepper) and avacado left, and was looking forward to finishing it with the new tortilla. but my plate came back empty except for the tortilla, she had assumed i was leaving my food and had pushed it into the bin. we laughed about it. and i have been overeating anyway, so it`s probably good for me in the long run.

me and jayne left her homestay mother, mela, a note one night to say we`d gone for a beer, but that jayne wouldn`t return home late. i thought i`d written this correctly - jayne no regresa mas tarde - jane will not return very late - but actually this means jayne isn`t coming back later. mela had panicked as she though jayne was running away!

the literacy rate in cuba is 100% because in 1960, they closed all the schools from kindergarten onwards, and all the teachers had to teach the whole population to read and write. great for the school kids as they got a year off school, and great for the population as they all learnt to read and write. it`s the only latin american country which has a 100% literacy rate. mexico is around 20% illiterate, which is quite a lot. guatemala is fairly high too, i think i heard it was 70% illiterate, but this seems a bit extreme. will investigate.

today is my 100th day since leaving england!

going home now to read my tefl books and try to become an amazing teacher overnight.

adios x