"This weeks teaching has been good, I feel I'm getting pretty familiar with the material but its really hard to judge what progress the kids are making and whether a point has sunk in. Getting well into making my own materials adapting what's in the book and stuff. I think I'm gonna try and do an Internet project with one of my groups. Get them all to visit the same website and as a group map it and produce posters about it - e.g. BBC so then, other students can see its benefits and use the posters to use that site themselves.
Outside school life is pretty mundane but then its carnival soon. This weekend could be looking up. We should be playing soapy football where you play football in a plastic arena which is covered in soapy water so its impossible to stay on your feet, shouldn't be too hard to break my leg !! We've had some rain as well here, I think I told you nothing torrential but enough to prove we've got a leaky roof !!

THE OBSERVED LESSON
I was observed by the DOS this week and the lesson went really badly, the class didn't pick up on the activity at all and I felt I was just talking all the time. He was cool though and gave some good feedback, I normally would have just scrapped the activity and done some thing else I had in reserve but I thought as he was watching that wouldn't be a good idea but he said I should have done, he was pretty supportive though which was cool.
Lessons are generally going really well. This internet thing is going to have to wait though, they have real problems with their computers here always crashing and going wrong or something, imagine !!!

'CARNAVAL'
So I've survived my first Carnaval and what a wicked experience. Rubens (pronounced Hubens) is the school admin bloke, my student and our general introducer to things to do in Caruaru. He's cool and his mate Arleey lives downstairs.
They sorted out the house in Olinda - 20 girls and 5 lads. The town is a world heritage site about 6 miles north of Recife and is made up of narrow cobbled streets and colonial buildings. Its on the coast but the beach is nothing to write home about compared to our Cornish Riviera, in fact I'm yet to see a beach anywhere near as nice as ours.
Anyway the whole residential population of this quaint little town is evacuated to be replaced by the party people. Windows are filled with sound systems and people hang out of the windows. There are no music licenses or sound restrictions: the party just goes on 24 hours a-day. Everyone dresses up and arms themselves with a water pistol and dances to the cheesiest music on earth. To me the different styles were indistinguishable, but I'm reliably informed that it is a mixture of Pagode, Maracatu, Farro and Fuero. All bar Farro result in"Steps"/"Abba"-style dance moves, which the whole population know off by heart - it's hysterical. The capital of Farro is Caruaru, location of the next Carnaval throughout June and the ideal time to come and visit: it will be absolutely mental. We stayed in Olinda from Friday until Wednesday. Rubens sorted out an unlimited supply of beer and a live-in cook who provided 3 meals every day for R$200 about £65 including our accommodation which was pretty cool.

PLANS
The DOS said there's some conference in October on the Pantanal where any teachers can go and present a topic to this conference. If I were to do something, he says he'll pay for the airfare and all the expenses. This is quite tempting as the conference is located on the Pantanal, the massive safari park of South America that is about the size of France.
However this would mean doing another semester , but I'll keep an open mind. I do quite fancy doing this M.A . I've been in contact with Southampton by e-mail - I'll have to wait and see.
Teaching is pretty cool, feel I'm settling into a bit of a groove now and starting to have more productive lessons and be more responsive to the students. The DOS is pretty good for feedback and stuff. Generally, he's a pretty cool boss.
We get another holiday mid-April (now) though about 6-days, so I reckon I'll go to Natal or Fortaleza - 2 coastal towns north of Recife that are meant to be really nice.
Gotta go to work now. I'm invigilating tests this week. It's cool to be on the other side for the first time sitting at the front handing out the tests. Watching the students makes me think of all those exams I've done, can't be many more left to do now.

CONTINUED ->