So, another week in Catania, full of fun and games, gin and playing pool but today I am not going to talk any more about my drunken weekends, instead I will fill you in on my school days! Yes, I do actually do some work here and I am enjoying it almost as much as the time off!

My week is pretty hectic, I work in the mornings except Mon and Wed at state schools, and the afternoons, at the English Study Centre. Most days I work from about 9 or 10 in the morning til 8 or 9.30 at night but I have a break in the middle for lunch and checking Facebook!

I work at two state schools, the first Lombardo only on a Monday, and I am glad about that! The classes I teach have no teacher present just me, and as I speak no Italian and the kids speak little English we have some fun! The Italian schools are nothing like in England, I thought I used to talk a lot in class but they put me to shame, at least I tried to be a bit quiet... they shout! My first lesson in Lombardo was hilarious and the second, terrible but they did manage to speak some English so at least I made an improvement!!!
The second class I have there are better, they don't speak at all so I get over my headache in the hour and a half of painfully drawing teeth - or making them speak English!

The other state school, Galileo is much better, there are teachers in the class who control the noise levels (a bit) and the kids want to learn a bit more so listen to me and speak. I have met all of my classes just once but they are all really nice and have funny kids and some really interested kids too so much more interesting for me.. I can talk about just about anything I want so we will hopefully have some good lessons in the future.

In the afternoons, I teach at the English Study Centre and really like it here, I have a very small classroom so have to swap about a bit for bigger classes, by big I mean more than 6 (I have a few classes of 8 students). I have 4 kids classes and I love them, there are some naughty/cheeky kids but they make it entertaining, my fave kids are always the cheeky ones, I can't help it! Most of them don't speak much/any Enlish and so it is a lot of games and drawing and sign language, but they are all nice kids.

I also have teenagers and adult classes which is when have to be slighly more serious as they want to pass exams, lots of questions aout grammar and pronunciation and I enjoy it as they ask really varied questions and make me use my brain a little bit (so better try not to destroy all of my brain cells at the weekends...)

So, that is my working week, I like it, I like the variety of ages and abilities, the differences between the different places I work, from a class of 28, 14 year olds who can't listen, to a class of 14 girls who won't speak; to teenage boys who ask if I will try on horse masks in class... yes he had a horse mask in his bag!
It has been good so far and now I have met them all I can get down to real work and help them all which is what I love doing.