Dear Family and Friends,

I never did describe that last week of the CELTA, did I? You may well be wondering: did I achieve what I set out to do? Did I pass? Please allow me to remedy this lack o’ info now.

That last week was very stressful: after three weeks of being switched “on” for at least twelve but usually fourteen hours a day, as a class we were wearing down. And during that last week, we two written assignments due as well as two final 55 minute lessons to teach – and that last week’s teaching evaluation criteria is very high. While I completely agreed that the standards should be high, I also felt more than a wee bit apprehensive because I was having a tough time teaching elementary English – elementary teaching goes slower and I really have problems “grading” my language (this is ESL-speak for using elementary level words). And unluckily, my first class in Week 4 was the toughest (teaching grammar) – but what was truly unfortunate was that I had not taught grammar since Week 2. However, the outlook was not all bad: in Week 3, I had a bad “outing” but learned from my mistakes and my next class was the best that I taught during the CELTA.

Sadly, I did not teach at “standard” level that final Tuesday. Effectively, this meant that I failed a teaching practice session – not good. Moreover, I do not ever handle failure well. And unhappily for my stress level, operating under the assumption that I can teach the other type classes (I can), I was assigned yet another grammar lesson. Oh, goody. Don’t get me wrong: philosophically, I was taking the CELTA solely to learn and pretty much ignored the grading system but I was still wracked by doubts even while I was intellectually telling myself that with hard work, I could teach a passable lesson. In the spirit of accuracy, I must admit that I had a night where my composure cracked – tears and all. It wasn’t pretty. Although I did my best to keep my emotion under wraps, I couldn’t truly hide it… but what turned out pretty that night was that I had several truly concerned friend who all were available for me to vent my fears, air my ideas, and help me through the planning of my final lesson. How lucky was I? Sand I worked very hard! And I worked hard! On Wednesday night I was up ‘til 1 am and subsequently woke myself at 4 am – in all honesty, I don’t think slept that night as much as shut my eyes and continued lesson planning. Happily, I taught the last CELTA class on Thursday afternoon and I passed – although it still was not at the level in which I had hoped to conclude the course.

Thursday evening was sweet. I took a short nap and then put on a celebratory going out top, vetted my friend’s vivid pink sari, and we girls joined the boys in an excursion to the Bangkok Jazz Club called Brown Sugar. That night is a bit of a blur now – I was beyond tired – but I can still picture 9 of us on the second floor a properly dingy dark club, at a long table, drinking and chatting about a myriad of subjects, none relating to the CELTA if we could help it. Live, decent quality Jazz music was played by the Thai musicians on the first floor and our faces were illuminated by the florescent “Brown Sugar” sign as we peered down at them. My Indian friend was especially enchanted – half the fun was watching her face. I made a mistake in heeding a craving for red wine and was served a glass of 200 THB vinegar – which I managed to pawn off to half the table in the form of “why don’t you try it?” sips. We had fun that night! But I wore down quickly and my Indian friend and I slipped away, hailed a tuk tuk (her first; my first good-quality negotiation) and we were snug in our beds at W House by half past midnight.

We didn’t have to be in class ‘til 11 am. That morning, we did paperwork, took pictures, exchanged e-mail addresses, and had a long lunch (in which I rushed out to run pre-Cambodia errands). We did have an hour to teach students that afternoon and my teaching group did 3 activities with the students – planned by the two best teachers in our group (I had earlier reminded them that we had planning to do but when they demonstrated experienced-teacher-we-can-think-on-our-feet-distain, I let them have at it). Being a rather popular teacher despite the fact that I suck (the students never seemed to think so), I ran the last activity and had a bit of a problem with lining up the students (I read backward better than my students can spell backward). Nice. Anyway, after that first hour, ECC set out snacks and provided non-alcoholic drinks for a student and teacher trainee party.

Celebrate we did. That party is the closest I have been or likely ever will be to a movie star. It seemed like everyone (teacher and students alike) had a camera or a cell phone and wanted to pose for pictures. At first this was flattering and fun: I and my fellow teachers smiled, snapped pictures, wrote in student memory books, posed for more pictures, and oh, more pictures. After a while I became a bit flash-fatigued, my Jennifer Aniston act wore off, and I avoided pictures when it wasn’t churlish to do so. We partied with our students for an hour, an hour and a half, and then I pulled my backpack from of our classroom, bid good-bye to remaining students and raced out of ECC. I hate good-byes and I had reason to hurry: I had to pick up my Cambodian Visa by 5.

At 6, we teacher trainees and our tutors met up at a third floor dive of a bar for our last celebration. ECC picked up the bill for 2 alcoholic drinks and while we did not think much of the bar, we drank and ate and talked and in the end, one by one, our group began to breakdown as we bid our fellow trainees good-bye and departed. My friend and I walked departed with two of the boys, but they wanted to shop (!!!!!) so my friend and I trudged to W House – although I have some very funny photographs from that walk home as we stopped to frolic amongst a display of photographs on the way.

And that was the end of our CELTA. The next morning, good-byes were exchanged amongst the remaining group and we three got into our metered taxi: destination Cambodia. I didn’t cry but tightly hugged my Indian friend and promised her that we’d meet again. And we will – which made parting bearable. I have wanted to travel to India for sometime and now I have the best of reasons.

Four weeks of intense work and I had achieved what I set out to do: I passed a good-quality ESL training course, I had acquired a CELTA training certificate, and now I need to put what I learned to work. I am still attempting to wrap my identity around being an English teacher. This’ll soon be more than a nebulous identity; it’ll be my reality. –Laura