Language Assistants Training Week

Hello everyone!

Last Monday I went to Hinterglemm, Austria for a language assistants training week. It was such a fun week, we received loads of information and resources to use in the classroom, and we all came away feeling much more confident in our teaching abilities and what we needed to do. I spent the weekend planning my lessons, and so far things seem to be going well, but I will write another blog post about my first week at school next weekend :)

One of the best things about the week was being able to meet other English Language Assistants who will be in the same area, and in some cases the same city, as me. I've made some wonderful new friends from the UK, Ireland and the USA, and we spent a lot of the week getting to know each other's cultures and discussing the wide differences between our versions of English! But above all, it's lovely to know that I have people that I get on so well with in the same city as me, and who I can meet up with at the weekends and maybe even do some travelling with!

The course itself was at Hinterglemm, which is home to a ski resort and is located in the mountains west of Salzburg. Here is the view from our conference centre that made us pine to be outside:

Luckily, on the Wednesday afternoon, we went on a group hike up a mountain! The scenery took my breath away, it was beautiful. And it may have taken us longer than the rest, but we made it to the top of the mountain, and back down, and we were only 30 minutes late to dinner! I was so proud of myself for getting to the top, and it was totally worth the sore legs for the next few days! And just to make sure we were all tired out after the 11.5 mile hike, we had a traditional Austrian dance lesson for two hours in the evening! It was great fun, but I sure slept well that night!

Here are some pictures from the hike:

And here are also some pictures of a lovely walk I went on with my housemate Charlotte last weekend. We climbed a tower where we had an amazing view over Linz, and you could even see the mountains in the distance.

Today was my first day teaching at the school. It's nice to be getting stuck in to what I'm really here to do, and all the teachers seem lovely. It's going to take some getting used to, but hopefully the students will find my lessons interesting and I'll get into my stride soon.

Thanks for reading!

Laura :)