As part of this trip with Endeavour Language Teacher\’s Fellowship, it is greatly encouraged that you make the scholarship known.  As part of this, I have undergone a newspaper interview. Please feel free to read.  I’m happy to sign autographs lol.

The PD in Melbourne was extremely practical.  Over the next few weeks, I’m going to be loading up teaching materials and instructions that I learnt from Andrea Truckenbrodt.

If you are looking for PD options, check out Critical Agendas.

Watch this space!

I’m off to Melbourne this week for a LOTE conference.  I’m really looking forward to this professional development because it means that I will be learning how to motivate my 4-7 learners.  I love teaching LOTE and it’s really important to me that I inspire my students to enjoy not only learning a smidge of another language, but also to appreciate other cultures.  Australia is a multi-cultural society.  We have such a melting pot of cultures present in our everyday world.  I actually love that about Australia.  But it’s important to understand how other cultures view the world and how that effects the way they react to certain things.

I will be taking my computer with me down south and I will update my blog as  I go.  If you are a teacher of 4-7 grades, you might be interested in following this too – they are an age group challenging to motivate!

As part of my trip, I need to have warm, waterproof walking boots.   I have boots, but they are not waterproof!  So – I have to buy some.  I’m heading up to Toowoomba to visit my sister and do some shopping.  Hopefully I can find a warm coat as well.

Currently, it’s 9 degrees during the day in Germany!

I have a teleconference on the 18th November.  I’m looking forward to hearing from the group leader, who actually taught me German in grade 9!!

That’s all for now!

Jolly along!

As part of my trip to Germay, I had to have travel insurance.  Thankfully, I have a travel agent I can trust and I just rang her up and got something over the phone instantly!

I am now considering what I’m going to wear.  The most bizaare thing for me is that I’ll be leaving 30+ degrees to freezing.  It’s currenly raining in Germany and only 9 degrees!  We’ll also be trekking around medieval towns (doesn’t that sound just DELIGHTFUL??)…. So I’m going to need warm, comfortable shoes.

I have a tele-conference on the 18th November.  THis is compulsory and it gives us more detailed information about my trip.  As soon as I know, I’ll let you know!

In the meantime, keep an eye out for my itinerary and my pages for teachers.  I have them under construction at the moment.

As part of my trip to Germany, I had to fill out multiple forms.  Name, DOB, Health Certificate, Travel Insurance and I HAD TO DO A TEST IN GERMAN!  Forms are painful to fill out at the best of times, but these forms took the cake!

They made it easy, by making the forms available online for us to fill out.  Unfortunately for me, I live in country Queensland and didn’t get my package until Tuesday.  The stress came with a deadline and a storm.  The deadline was FRIDAY!!  The storm took out all my internet!  I used the school computers to fill in some of the forms but, to add to my frustration, the internet was an older version and I wasn’t allowed to update it!  SOOOOO … the AEF (Asia Education Foundation) pdf -ed them to me and I had to fill them out manually and express post them.

I’m very pleased to say that I got it all done by the hair of my chinny, chin, chin!

I lived in PNG for two years when I was 10. It made a HUGE impression on me. It was actually during this time that I decided to be a LOTE teacher. There were German missionaries on the compound where we lived and they taught me some German.

Amazingly, the same day I received the email informing me of my trip to Germany, I also received a package in the mail from one of the German missionaries with whom we had contact. It was great to hear from them. It was also incredibly special that they send me a German children’s book!

Häschen is Rabbit and Schule is school. It’s a beautiful story, in rhyme, about little rabbits going to school. Given that I wanted to read something in German every day, this book came at a wonderful time. Also, I am doing pets in my LOTE class this term! A story about rabbits fits in perfectly!

I have been checking my emails, almost hourly, since September.  That’s when I was told that it would come.  But it didn’t come.  Not then.

Friends and family were asking, “Have you heard yet?”

“Grrr” I would reply, “NO!  But I’ll let you know as soon as I do.”

Well.  I know now.  I am the very happy recipient of an ELTF Scholarship.  That is, Endeavour Language Teacher’s Fellowship.

The email came last week.  It had a link….. http://www.endeavour.deewr.gov.au/language_teachers_fellowships/2010_ELTF_Recipients.htm.

And so, I’m going to Germany!!  I can’t even begin to put in words how excited I am about this “professional development!”  I am very happy, a bit nervous, a bit sad at leaving my hubby and kids, excited, overwhelmed and I don’t know what else!  So many feelings in one.

I have hired a tutor.  Her name is Bettina and she is meeting with me once a week to speak German with me.  I’m actually loving it.  She says my German has improved even in one week!  Hopefully, I will be able to feel comfortable with my German in Germay!!

And!  I have determined to read something German every day…. more about that to come!