Snapping

One of those days which is paradoxically liberating and depressing. Actually, the last few days have been a bit like that.

I've flicked through Ellis The Study of Second Language Acquisition to the final chapter, which begins around page 600, and is on the subject of SLA and formal instruction. When you cut to the chase, it comes to this: everything you do in the classroom amounts to (almost) nothing.

And so it goes with the teaching here. I had a really bad do with Old Gomez first thing this morning. The "good morning" I got from the class was distinctly frosty. This is in part due to the stress they get from exams, even mocks, but mostly because of PTI's antics yesterday. He called a meeting for all of the students, with the object of berating them about punctuality. To underline his dissatisfaction, the clueless bastard began the meeting by slamming the door as he entered the room. We don't know exactly what was said, but proceeding lasted well over an hour, and scuppered our afternoon exam schedule. It left the students very pissed off.

The first evidence came yesterday, when Fester told LM that he thought I was not an "active" enough teacher. Fuck knows. Though actually I have been trying to take a back seat to avoid any outbursts from Old Gomez.

And so this morning. Like I said, a frosty reception. And as I started the lesson, eliciting as usual the day and date, Old Gomez kept on reading a letter he had in front of him. I asked him if we could start the lesson, and he said, after a very long pause, Yes, I am listening - and went back to his letter. I cannot explain it, but I snapped. I said, perhaps we could continue the lesson when he was ready, and left the classroom.

So, over the next hour or so, LM acted as go-between, I calmed down, and we continued with another morning's miserable teaching.

I later learned from LM that I hold the record for teaching this class - remember that they've had a year in England. Mostly, teachers beg to me moved on after a few short weeks. Often, they flee the classroom in tears after a few hours.

In any other situation, Old Gomez would be down-the-road. Not here. Not with the Government paying his wages, and a senior manager somewhere going to work each morning with a song in his heart because he managed to outmanoeuvre Gomez onto this project, and out of his own hair, into mine, and under my skin.

I also learned later, that LM, having an academic interest in motivation, took this job to see if innovations in teaching - particulary the use of a VLE - could motivate incorrigibles like the Addams Family. Unfortunately, he got to Libya and found that things like VLEs were figments of an SMT meeting's imagination, and that the reality is, you're stuck in-between a whiteboard and the Worst Class In The World.

Anyway, having got the gold medal for teaching these bastards for a record eight weeks, I'm to be given a break from them in a classroom reshuffle next week. Hamdullah!

Residents

We got our Residents' Permits today. It's quite a big deal, means you can come and go at you want. And it smooths the way for the wife and bairn. It also gives that sense of having arrived.

HD said that he'd told the driving licence authority not to bother after they told him they'd need another blood test. I wasn't too happy about this, and said I didn't mind another test, it was important to me to be mobile. He suggested that I was mad. Not mad, I nearly said, just not shitting myself at the thought of driving in a foreign country.

LM suggested a weekend away. But I'd rather wait until we have driving licences. We plan to drive up to Tunisia - avoiding the obviousness of Djerba. But for a weekend break without a car, I advised him, if he wants to do a bit of boozing, that Malta's the place. It's actually much easier to get to, a 50 minute flight into Europe.

I'm saving up my money and thirst, anyhow. Only two more weekends before my holiday at home.

Spent most of today preparing for a mock exam on Sunday morning. The students are being led to believe that the exam is on the 4th of next month, though actually it's more likely to be at the end of May.

T4 is not coming for now. The nature of the latest hold up is unclear to me. As is T4. Is she some kind of mythical creature? The good thing about her continued non-appearance is that the existing staff have higher value.

In the mini bus on the way home, LM told me about an emotional meeting he'd had with "Wally", an American booksalesman of local parentage. He was selling the college some interactive boards. We actually had demonstration models. But he never followed up, and lost the sale. Likewise with books. He told LM that he'd had enough of being unable to deliver. After four years in the land of his Grandfather, he was heading back to The States, a broken reed. For some reason, we found this quite funny.

LM said that it made him think about his plans for a VLE and generally high tech environment. Now, he was delighted just to get a book he ordered. I ribbed him about all his fancy talk when we were back in the UK. I resisted the temptation to say, I'd thought he was being absurdly optimistic at the time. I'm the only person here with prior knowledge of this country, and my opinion has rarely been asked for. It would be boorish of me to give advice unasked for. And it wouldn't be listened to, anyway.