How to get a job teaching English abroad.

Coming soon.

How to become a teacher if you did not major in education - stateside.

There are tons of companies that provide stream-lined processes to get an Alternative Teacher Certification.  Some school districts do it also, but the companies make it much more convenient.  It costs about $700 more to go with a private company... but, they give you online checklists and other perks that are extremely helpful when dealing with such an overwhelming amount of hoops to jump through.  Also, they take their fees out of your paychecks, so you only pay the full price if you get a steady teaching job.  It was a good choice for me.

Now the specifics.  Most of the requirements for AC (Alternative Certification... Everything in education has an acronym.  Prepare to be sick of them.) are time-based.  You have to attend something like 15 sessions of training at about 8 hours each, and by some unspoken rule ALL of these sessions must take place in small, faraway towns.  Attendance is recorded digitally, you have to swipe your card when you arrive and when you leave, so there is no signing in and taking off.  Out of these, one session was very informative (google Dr. Wong, he's funny... or maybe I was delirious when he took the stage after I sat through 6 hours of boring training), and the rest were redundant and slightly condescending (Think generic phrases like "Each student is different!" and "Let them know what you expect of them!").  This had nothing on the training for my actual district.  If you did the math correctly, you've already realized: You have to have a ton of training for the company to SUGGEST to the school district that you are ready to be hired, then once you are hired the school district forces you to go to MORE training.  More on that later.

Back to the company requirements.  Aside from training, you have to take some tests.  Most teachers only take two tests: the PPR (Pedagogy and Professional Responsibility) and your content area exam (A geometry teacher would take a test on geometry, and so on).

Unfortunately for me, language teachers must take 2 tests for each language they want to teach:  A written test (the PBT, paper-based test) and an oral test (the TOPT, texas oral proficiency test).  Did you think I was lying about the acronyms?  It gets much, much worse.  Anyway, seeing has how I wanted to teach 2 languages, I needed 2 PBTs, 2 TOPTs, and 1 PPR.  Each one is free and is administered in your neighborhood.  Haha!  Just kidding of course.  Each one is $70 (if you sign up 6 months in advance, otherwise expect to pay another $60 for EACH), and administered in towns that are 2 hours away from any major city.

I gallantly signed up for all the tests and attended all the training sessions.  The first time, I passed the PPR, the French TOPT, and the Spanish PBT.  This meant I had to retake the French PBT and Spanish TOPT.

The Spanish TOPT is universally considered among teachers to be extremely difficult.  I have heard of native Spanish speakers from South America being unable to pass it.  I bought study guides and annoyed the hell out of my then-boyfriend by making him help me study (he was Mexican) and if it weren't for him I doubt I would have passed (thanks Mau!) at all, ever.  I have two framed things in my apartment:  my diploma from college and the score sheet from my Spanish TOPT saying I passed (with the minimum passing score... that test is a bitch I tell you).  Those are the 2 things of which I am most proud.

I retook the French PBT and passed easily... before I took it the first time I had had a really rough break up the night before.  That's the only possible reason I failed it because when I retook it I remember thinking, "This is extremely easy, wtf happened before?"

So, at the end of that summer, I was Highly Qualified (HQ) to teach and was the proud owner of a Probationary Certificate, meaning I could legally teach the subject and after one year I could get a standard certificate.  Presumably this is to cut down paperwork since most first year teachers run screaming for another job and never need a standard certificate.  But I didn't know that.

Gypsies, tramps and thieves: Morocco

Hi!

The school year is basically over, and that means a well-deserved vacation for the lecturers.  After toiling away day in and day out for 10 hours a week average, and having finished grading exams, we can now prepare for the year ahead sit on the banks of the Loire river sipping wine and eating cheese.

Quick note from a sweet student:

Still working on singular/plural, but you get the gist.

So since this is a travel blog (with only occasional tangents about the deplorable state of education and vitriolic diatribes about rude strangers), I will tell you about my short trip to Morocco.

Let's start at the beginning.  One weekend in Paris, I was signed up to take a course that would result in my certification to teach Zumba.  It was a 2 day course and I was coming from Tours that morning, and my train was late.  When I arrived at the correct train station, I was shocked to find that the gym at which the training took place was not, in fact, in the train station.  I had not planned on that.  I sprinted, very, very late, from the train station and proceeded to wander around a gloomy, industrial area of Paris.  I was in the midst of crossing a highway when I saw the Only Human Being in the area.  She was easy to spot because she was wearing colorful gym attire.  Before I could ask her for help, she asked ME if I knew where the Zumba training was.  Yay!  The only thing better than having an answer as to where to go is to have someone else lost with you.  We eventually found the place and chatted throughout the conference.  Her name was Lilka, and she was French but had since moved to Casablanca.  Her employer paid for her to fly to France for the weekend to be re-certified.  She invited me to visit her in Morocco, which of course, I did!

It was a fantastic trip, mostly because the sun was shining the whole time and this Texas girl was not built for French "spring."  French springs are quite chilly and disturbingly similar to French winters, at least here in the northern part of the country.  So we spent most of my time in Casablanca at the beach, which was absolutely glorious.  Then one day, when we were walking back to Lilka's (gorgeous) flat, we saw two little boys playing soccer in the street skip past us, chirping, "Bonjour mesdames!".

Tangent:  Walking around in Casablanca was crazy.    I had asked if I would have to cover up, but Lilka said since I was obviously a tourist (I kept my camera around my neck just to belabor the point) I could wear whatever.  I had chosen a flowy top and a knee-length, loose skirt.  But I didn't remember the molecular abnormality in arab men's eyes that make that outfit, due to a warped fragmentation of light combining with said molecular anomaly, be transmitted to the optic nerve and then the brain as the following image:

Colors to scale.

It was simply astonishing to count the number of men, most of whom were ACCOMPANIED BY THEIR WIVES, stop dead in their tracks and "compliment" Lilka and me.  Like, if we crossed under a huge building, men on multiple floors came to their windows and shouted down and whistled at us.  Cars were literally making u-turns to drive by us again.  The funny part was, they didn't know which kind of European we were, so as long as we weren't talking they would try as many languages as they knew on us.  So the exchange would go somewhat like this:

Young arabic men (15 feet away): "Woooooooow!  Les filles!  Incroyables!"

Us: Silence.  Me laughing uncontrollably at the fact that said men look exactly like Danny and his henchmen in this clip (up to :38) except they are wearing tunics.

YAM (5 feet away): "Heellllooooo girlssss, how are you today?"

Us: Silence.

YAM (next to us):"Holaaaaa chicas!!! Bonitas!!!!"

Us: Silence.

Lilka: "Hmmm.  You probably should have worn pants."

So.  Back to the little boys.  Did you think I forgot about them?  Don't be ridiculous.  So as they passed I was starting to relax my Don't Make Eye Contact strategy of ignoring nefarious comments, because they were rather adorable.  Suddenly I felt a painful smack on my head.  Had a stray soccer ball hit my head?  No.  I turned around and saw a gaping little boy, he must have been 8 or 9, looking me straight in the eyes.  Then he ran away.  Slightly dazed from the smack on the head, I looked at Lilka and asked, "Uh... what just happened?" and she, also shocked, eventually said, "Um... your sunglasses are gone!".  That's right.  The little boy had LEPT up behind me to snatch the fake Ray-Bans from my head, and gave me a smack on the way down to boot.  After my shock subsided, I was able to appreciate the fact that my wallet full of cash and my camera were still with me.  My next reaction was outrage at that little punk, and then sadness because his family had probably taught him to be on the lookout for white people wearing ray bans because that meant they were probably real.  Sucks for him, I'm not that classy.

Anyway.  Here are some pics.

First night: Lilka and Youssef hunt down some vegetarian food for me - I think they were slightly insulted.  You can't see it in the pic, but Lilka is crestfallen that this meal doesn't have camel in it.

Moroccan tea... scrumptious.

Moroccon breakfast.  The reason men hound westerners in the street is because no Moroccan woman can resist this breakfast, and immediately after eating it she becomes the size of a house.

Pointed out which sauce is which (the best was an almond flower mixture).

Oh hey!  You guys!  It's like the movie!

Fountain at mosque.

Da beach, with lighthouse in the distance.

Me and Lilka, zumba girls!

Driving to the airport jamming to arabic music.

Before Morocco, I went to London to celebrate an almost-3-year-anniversary with loverboy.

awwwwwww. The restaurant where we first met!

In May, loverboy is going to visit and in June, I'm going to visit a fellow lecturer in Glasgow.  Then it'll only be a few weeks before Kenya!

To tide us all over, here are some updates from Tours.

This is the view from my bed.  Not near as nice as the outside looking in, though.  Heyooo!

The Loire is flooded a lot right now.  That wooden thing in the water is a trash can next to a submerged walking trail.

Living next to a river is glorious.

Some of the people we met are very gifted musicians.  For a joint birthday party, they gave us a free concert in (what else?) a cave decorated as a tropical island.

This is a French band called "Boys in Lilies," and I think they rock.  Seriously watch the video if you have a few seconds.  This is their website and their facebook page.

This is a French band called Drop Machine.  Again, beautiful voices and lovely songs.  Website, facebook page.

The building behind the pink tree is my apartment.

And, here is an easy to view handstand list!