CategoryRamblings

SingTel Mystery Fail

I was humming along on the internet last Tuesday when the ‘next page’ link didn’t work for some reason. That’s not so unusual so I tried another site. Nothing. I rebooted. Nothing. I rebooted the router/etc. Nothing. I repeated this for hours. Nothing. I tried my mobile phone internet to see if there was some reported problem with SingTel. There was no internet there either. I tried calling support and the call failed. After dozens of attempts the call connected but the line sounded like a modem from days gone by. I finally had to borrow a Starhub phone from a friend to get through to SingTel support to be told that there is no problem with anything. Of course we had to reboot everything again and again to have a tech sent out … on Saturday! This was my first week of a class that is incredibly dependent upon being able to connect to the net!

On the side of the mobile phone at least, it suddenly started working around lunchtime on Wednesday. According to the Strait’s Times the SingTel 3G network was out for most of the country for a day and a half. And the “customer support” line just lied. On a hilariously infuriating note, after getting through for a few seconds and being disconnected, I got an immediate SMS asking me to kindly rate their service! It would have been considerably less slimy if the largest and most stable phone company in this country would have thought to send some sort of notice to their subscribers (by SMS which worked through everything) rather than lying and causing everyone somehow suddenly out of communication to try reinstalling their phone and other destructive behaviors.

Back to the internet. We have high speed fiber. All of the router lights were green. I would have been happier if they were red since that would be more believable. The tech confirmed, what they didn’t want to believe when speaking to them, that even the admin interface to the router was inaccessible when directly connected to it while all lights still happily smirked green. He replaced the router and it worked. Then it didn’t. Replug. Reboot. Works. Doesn’t. Hard-Reset. Okay. Happiness. I feel a bit bad for the tech since we still don’t know what was wrong, why it was wrong, and how on earth the lights were green despite everything being wrong. He promised to write up the whole situation in their records to that if (when?) this happens again someone might believe me. I somehow doubt they will.

For now, the lifeblood flows …

CELTA: Day 2; TP 1

This first week of CELTA (yes, I know this is the second day but my particular on-site class sessions are on Wednesdays and Fridays) has been quite a whirlwind of activity. The class philosophy is on reflective learning rather than traditional knowledge transfer. This means rather than talking about teaching and observing teachers, we were immediately dumped into actual teaching (TP = Teaching Practice). They were at least kind enough to allow us a short time slot for the first time in the deep end, though I suspect that this was simply because it made sense for the new students and the new term rather than for any particular interest in my well-being.

Thursday I tried to figure out what exactly a lesson plan should be: the language, aims, stages, procedures, tests, and evidence. I cobbled together some forms (which was admittedly a slight procrastination-based-on-fear diversionary experimentation with the Pages app).

My “lesson” was a “running dictation” in which the grouped students would write up a one page description of a restaurant by individually running outside to read a text and repeating what could be remembered for a scribe to record. It went quite well considering I was frightened to death. I just started with a basic self-introduction before going into the activity and observed the other trainees after my slot. The new students in the class were amazingly good and came from all over the world (Singapore, Russia, Hong Kong, Vietnam, Malaysia, China, Spain, Thailand, France, Myanmar).

Continue reading “CELTA: Day 2; TP 1”

CELTA: Day 1

The posts coming up will likely be of even less interest to anyone but myself than usual, but I need to keep a record of the events of the next few months for myself so this is where that will be. The writing may be marginally readable, but the intent here is to preserve my notes for my own recollection (just because, and also just because a future assignment asks for an overview of my experiences). This will eventually evolve into a more reflective journal, but it will begin quite tediously while hopefully becoming less so …

Today was the first day of my first formal teacher training and development class: CELTA. I was not only concerned about the class, but also the transportation logistics. These fears were unfounded, as the tutors and fellow trainees are delightful, and the MRT to the Toa Payoh branch of the British Council actually had seats available since the direction I have to travel is opposite to that of most of the human mass during my commute time.

The class will have written assignments (4) and actual teaching (9 observed classes). The teaching will be in the mornings and the afternoons will be filled with input, tutoring, and planning. The evaluation of, and feedback upon, our progress will be continuous so there’s no chance of being caught suddenly unaware of impending failure.

Continue reading “CELTA: Day 1”