Seb's TEFL blog

The last week and a half we have been doing a TEFL course. TEFL stands for Teaching English as a Foreign Language. In this course we are trying to learn how to teach English to students in India while only using English to teach them. I thought at first it sounded impossible to be able to teach English to little Indians while only using English and not one bit of Indian. But, over the last week and a half we have learnt how we are supposed to do this and it actually doesn't seem as hard as I thought it would be.

     We have learnt many different methods on how to do this. It includes doing nursery rhymes and saying them out loud to the class and explaining the words by making  big gestures with our arms and hands and drawing pictures on the board and maybe with pictures that you might bring and show to them.

    Other methods include games such as hangman and "granny went to the shop and bought..." and reading out books to the children and slowly explaining it. The story that we are bringing will be different for each person and it will be a maximum of 15 sentences long. We have been going over grammar and the names for different tenses and their type which I find confusing but Eduardo finds it easy as he already did it in English classes in Spain.

    On either Wednesday half the class go to an actual class in the language collage to see how it is in a class with foreign students.

Thanks for reading,
Seb.

Darragh's TEFL blog

For the past week and a half our year has been doing a TEFL course out in Bray. We are doing a TEFL course because we are going to India to teach children between the ages of 5 and 14 years old. TEFL stands for teaching English as a foreign language. We are learning a lot from this course. Transition year is going great. There is very little homework which I love.

Ajeeta's TEFL blog

For the past 2 weeks we have been doing a TEFL (teaching English as a foreign language) course. This our training for teaching the children once we get to India. I have enjoyed the course so far because we have been learning different teaching methods that consist of many games and activities that are used to grab the attention of students. Besides all the fun and games we have also been learning how to teach grammar and pronunciation to the Indian children who probably have little to no experience with getting thought by someone who's first language is English. I have enjoyed the course that is now coming to an end and I feel that I have benefited from it.

Hannah's TY blog

    Transition year is a brilliant year. It is a great year for experience. I have already noticed a change in myself, and I am growing as an individual.I love the free time in transition year. We get to go to the shops at lunch and we get to relax a lot. I love that we use laptops a lot more this year. I think laptops make the class more fun and we get a little excited when we get to use laptops. One of my favourite parts of transition year so far, are the Thursday afternoon trips out. We mostly go into town. We go to places like the Irish aid centre, the Georgian house museum, a Blood and guts walk (which was about disease in Ireland in the 1900's). They are so fun and it’s fun to go into town during school time.

Sophie's TEFL and TY blog

Transition Year in my eyes,
Transition Year has been a year of opportunities.The year is so jammed packed with activity. Transition Year is a year of getting to know yourself and your friends.Its full of bonding activities that really show who will or won't help you.

      The past two weeks we have been in Bray for a TEFL course. Our mentor Tony has rarely worked with teenagers before which is very apparent. On the days when I don't want to go into TEFL just to be shouted at I think of Fareed's mom who made the course possible and of how grateful I am that she has let a group of 18 very characteristic people take this course in her school. I’m sure going into work everyday to find 18 teenage eyes looking up at you must have been hard.

        This small group of 18 people are the people that when times are tough I turn to for laughter.These are the people that when I'm having a bad day make me laugh till I cry. They are the glue which holds my sanity together... I say this now but when we spend 3 weeks in the heat in India my story might change.

Isobel's TEFL blog

If there were desks at language teaching college Ireland, we would probably all spend most of our time hiding under them. Tony, our TEFL tutor is quite fierce.Fortunately, the authorities at language teaching college Ireland have cleverly designed chairs with inbuilt tables, too small to conceal a person, in order to rid pupils of any such notion.

   However, Tony ,despite being strict is, in my opinion, a very good teacher. I find I am learning the art of teaching English as a foreign language very quickly. I am extremely grateful to the college for giving us this tuition, which would otherwise cost a lot of money.

   Grammar recap is something that we have covered this week in TEFL. This is not so that we can drill the Indian students on their English grammar, but so that at least we will know whether we ourselves are speaking English absolutely correctly. I found it a rather humiliating experience to discover how little I really know about my own language.

   We are also learning to communicate the English language to students through nursery rhymes, songs and stories, using imagery (drawing on the board), miming and clarity of speech. I am finding this an exiting and beneficial experience.

Christine's TEFL blog

We are doing a T.E.F.L course in Bray. Fareed's mum, Jackie Sababou provided us with the course for free. We are taught by a man called Tony. He is currently teaching us grammar, nursery rhymes, story's, stick men and X's and O's. 

    

   Last week a woman came in to teach us Bengali. We learnt words such as what is your name? (Tumar nam ki) My name is ___, ( Amar nam ____ ) Hello and yes and no (hah and nah ). We also looked at her wedding album and she described her wedding to us in Bengali. 

     

    During the rest of the week we have to pick stories and narrate them to the class while drawing them on the board. We are going through lesson plans as well.

Fareed's TEFL blog

We've been doing the TEFL course for a week and a half now and i am enjoying it. I've learned many new things about teaching English. For example something we've been told multiple times is that visual is king, basically that visually is one of the best ways that you can teach your students. Some students find it difficult to concentrate or focus on reading material and for them it can be much easier to learn through visual methods, also your students that learn easily through reading material will also find visuals interesting and therefore it can be used to teach all the students.
I've found the TEFL course quite interesting. It isn't as hard as I thought it may be but it isn't easy either. The teacher, Tony, is quite strict, as he is used to teaching mature adults that want to learn, don’t mess and are very attentive, but he is a very good teacher and has been quite patient with the class while teaching us.

Christine We have done a lot of activities since the start of 4th year. The best week we had so far was the rap week. Big Stu came into the class and split us into groups. He then allocated us music for our raps. We wrote our out our raps before recording them. The next step was making a music video. My favorite week of all was work experience. I did mine in the ark vet care clinic in Foxrock. It was so much fun and I learnt a lot about caring for animals as well as operations. The week after mid term we went on a cooking course. The chief was called Nail. At the start of each morning chief gave us a demonstration on the food we were going to make that day. We then split into groups and started cooking our lunch. I personally didn't enjoy the food as it was ethnic food but it was fun to make and the pavlovas were yummy. At the end of the week we had a fundraiser lunch where we cooked for the whole school. We raised over 500 euro and even ran out of food. Every Thursday we go on a class trip. One trip we went to the web summit. It was the best Thursday trip we went on. We went around to all the stands and got lots of free bees. Izzy So far in 4th year, my favourite project was the cookery school in Donnybrook Fair. We spent a week cooking different ethnic foods, such as thai, indian, mexican and italian. It was so much fun and I learnt lots about cooking and it really made me interested in culinary arts as something I would like to look into for my future. I also really enjoyed the first week of 4th year when we went to bridge 21. we made videos and advertisments in groups and it was a good bonding experience and was good fun. The people who worked there were all really sound and easy to work with. I havnt enjoyed the harassment I have recieved from mr.van de belt always calling me out of class and punishing me with detention, penalty points and report slips. Ill be honest by saying that its making 4th year very difficult. But anyhoo, I really like the fact we dont have to do homework and its a really nice break after 3rd year. We do get some homework but its nothing compared to 3rd year. I like thursdays when we go on our outings, there always good fun. My favourite outing was the web sumit in the RDS, there was loads of free food and the big talk was hilarious. If I am completly honest, I would have rather skipped and got straight back to work in 5th year to finish school quicker but I am enjoying 4th year so its grand. The only problem im having is to focus and keep my mind concentrated. I always feel distracted and my heads always in a dream and unfortunatly this is getting me in a lot of trouble, but on a posotive note, I am trying my best to behave and focus for my sake but also im scared of mr.van de belt giving me another lecture in his creepy office, and then me having to sign off another penalty point because i can never reason with him, and he never listens to what i have to say. So, to avoid me getting in bad moods and feeling miserable im trying to behave and concentrate to send off more positive vibes throughout the class. But I will say one thing, I dont want to look back on my 4th year and say it was 'boring' so ye im a bit crazy but I enjoy being outgoing, as long as it doesnt keep getting me in trouble. Chris Dear blog, My T.Y experience so far has been very interesting, it is a lot different to my old school. One really big change is having moths in the class, Im usually used to it being all lads and it was usually really quiet. I've only been in the school for less than two weeks and I've already did more than I ever did in my old school. I've done two classes of Kempo and we did a cookery course for the whole week. The teachers I've noticed are a lot more involved in the students learning and development. Most of the teachers in my old school just wrote something on the board and then told us to write it down and didn't care whether we learnt it or not and we could easily get away without doing homework. Another really big differnce is that my old school had no computers for the students, and here you usually use computers for every class. All of the lads are bangon and most of the girls are dead sound as well. Thats my view of T.Y so far. Chris

Fareed and Sherry Fitzgerald Work Experience

My first 2 days of Work Experience (W.E.), in Sherry Fitzgerald with Darragh and Seb, have gone really well. When I first arrived at Sherry Fitzgerald I noticed how organised the programme was and I was surprised to see at least 20 or 30 other TY students also waiting to start their Work Experience. After the first few hours on my first day I quickly realised that this TY W.E. programme at Sherry Fitzgerald is based more on teaching you about Real Estate, financial departments, marketing, customer sentiment, customer feedback and Sherry Fitzgerald as a whole, rather than having you spend the week working on something you don’t know much about. Everyday, with the exception of Thursday, we start at 10 and finish at 3 with an hour for lunch break from 1-2. Different people working in completely different departments of Sherry Fitzgerald HQ. come in to talk to us about what it is they do, why its necessary and how we can take up a similar career path. So far we have had talks on customer feedback, Accounting, corporate Social Media, Franchises, IT and Financial Services (Mortgages, House Insurance etc.) and then near the end of most talks we’ll go into the groups we’ve been put in to for the week and do group work and quizzes all in an effort to earn points as the team with the most points wins a big mystery prize. Me and Darragh are in a group together with 6 other people and Seb is in a separate group. Our groups are in first place tied in points. On Thursday the format of the day changes as we will be assigned to a branch in Dublin or a department in HQ. ,which is where we are now, to work for the day. We will start at 11 and finish at 3. The talks I have found most interesting are Accounting, Corporate Social Media and Financial Services. So far the week has gone really well and I have enjoyed it.

Sophie saves her money to go to India

When my big brother went to India 2 years ago he went on and on about how amazing it was so naturally I was really excited for my trip.

I live in a family of four My mom , two brothers and myself. I didn't want my mom to have to pay the whole fee because that would take away from something my brothers could have done.

Ever since I have known her my grandmother has saved her 1c,2c and 5c in a little pot and at the end of the year she would count it up and by Christmas presents with it. This is what inspired me to save.

I saw how easy it could be. Very rarely do we use our 1c 2c or 5c so I just put them away. I also saved up every bit of money I was given as pocket money or money relatives gave me for my India trip.

My Mom and I counted up all the money I had saved and it came up to 300 euro. A very big achievement for someone that spends money like its going out of fashion.

This has definitely taught me that I can save my money for more important things rather than a new pair of earrings or shoes. I am really glad I did it.

Blood and Guts Walk

Yesterday afternoon we went on a "blood and guts" walk. A tour guide called Ronan took us around town and told us about all the different disease-and-death-related people and places in Dublin. I learned a lot of things I didn't know before. Ronan told us the first dissection ever performed in Ireland was on an elephant. He also told us about famous grave robbers Burke and Hare, and how radiotherapy for cancer treatment was invented in Dublin. All in all, I would say it was a good trip!

Rory

Donnybrook Fair Cookery School

This week we have been attending the Donnybrook Fair cookery school so that we may put on a fundraiser on Friday. All students and their parents are invited to attend! We will be serving delicious food for lunch!

First Day of Cookery Course with Chef Niall

Eduardo's Legal Work Experience

Reflection Day 1

When I arrived to McCarrolls’ House, at 9:30 am, I was impressed. It was very big. They made me a little study next to Mr McCarroll. He started to explain to me what his work was about: commercial lawyer. He gave me a couple of cases and made me do a little summary about each case. I was impressed again. One case had at least 30 pages and the other one too but with a huge document written by Mr McCarroll that was the opinion of the case. I have learned new technical words, procedures, etc…

Next we had to go to Arthur Cox’s offices to finish a case that I can’t tell about because is confidential. I met there 4 more people: Mary, Paul, David and a woman whose name I don’t remember. We stayed there from 11:30 to 16:05 when I went home. I was very quiet because they were talking very fast and doing things that I didn’t understand. I wasn’t very useful but I did a couple of questions when I didn’t understand something. They invited me to lunch. They were very kind with me.

Isabelle Andrews McCarroll's Architecture Blog

I did my work experience at MVK architect's office. My employers day started at nine and finished at six so that was the schedule I followed while working there. The address of MVK architects was 19 Fitzwilliam square, which was a very pleasant location overlooking the park, though it took some time for me to find on the first morning- I cycled around the square approximately 34 times.

Using the intercom for the first time to let my employers know i had arrived (a bit late) was a very intimidating experience but one which I soon got used to as i had to contact them through it at least twice a day.

Michael and Victoria Kavanagh were very welcoming and had set out a schedule for my week. My first day was dedicated to model making, which is part of an architects work. the model was of an old cottage, a renovated school house, in county Galway. After my first three or four attempts, Mr Kavanagh found that my model was almost recognisable as the cottage mentioned above.

On the next day, Tuesday, I embarked on a new project (had two main projects for the week). This project was design based. A site very near to the old school house I was modelling. This site was really a ruined cottage with sheds which Mrs Kavanagh was interested in renovating and extending. This involved locating historical and modern maps of the site and getting them to scale (using the office photocopier, which is almost as confusing as the school one) in order to compare and trace them before getting started on designing. in the afternoon, Mrs Kavanagh took me with her to UCD to see a presentation by her 1st year landscape architecture students.

I went to UCD again on Wednesday with Mrs Kavanagh to see another presentation, this time by fourth year students, on urban forestry. I talked to some of the students and they showed me their portfolios for the year. I found these university trips to be very beneficial for me as they gave me an impression of the process of becoming an architect. Thursday and Friday were dedicated to finishing my model and plans for the ruined site. I have the evidence of these completed projects in hard copy.

Isabelle at MKV Fitzwilliam Sq

I found my employers, Michael and Victoria Kavanagh to be very helpful and kind. they gave up a lot of their time to help and guide me and always kept me busy with interesting and captivating work. I'm really glad to have done my work experiance here even if I don't follow a career in architecture, I feel I now have a great appreciation of the art of structure design. I owe this to my employers.

Christian's Carpentry Log

In the last five days I have made four trusses, twelve rafters, and supports for all the trusses

Over the last five days my confidence has built immensely, I felt more confident with the tools with every day that passed.

My general confidence in myself has also risen greatly. 

My relationship with my uncle is much better, we are now much closer and he has also offered to give me a job during the summer if he has a big project that he needs help with. This shows me that he feels I am ready for more complicated carpentry and calculations. I think he feels he can trust me because he is entrusting me with his tools that cost him thousands of pounds.

He has taught me a lot of technical words and slang words for what is what in the world of carpentry. He also showed me traditional numbering that goes back thousands of years, these traditional numerals have to be carved into the wood very carefully.

He also taught me how to drive a forklift and how to store timber properly and carefully, using bearers to hold the wood up so it can be picked up again, if needed, by the forklift.

My uncles employer, Daniel, showed me, on his computer how to order and sell wood and how to create a contract for a client, I thought this was very interesting but I do not think it would the job for me.

Picture of truss I made

This whole experience has lead me to believe that I might go into my uncle's line of work as carpenter, I think I may, in the future do an apprenticeship with him and then try an create my own traditional oak carpentry company.

I found working with my uncle very exhilarating and exciting and I would with out a doubt do it all over again.

This is Christian Devine....... logging out 

Ajeeta's DSPCA Blog

Animal Shelter, Mt Venus
I have been pretty much doing the same jobs each day up to now. I am becoming more efficient at the jobs I am doing. Today we did a thorough clean of the dogs kennels making sure every spec of dirt is rid of. A new dog arrived on Tuesday that I took a liking to, it is a young lively Labrador that loves to play fetch. The only thing I would dislike would be cleaning the kennels but I guess that comes with the package. We are occasionally asked to do specific jobs but we are generally left to do the same jobs we were given since day one. This is not a job where messing and mistakes are taken lightly though because one little mistake could result in the injury of an animal. The days are long and tiring but its worth it knowing  that you have made a few dogs life that bit happier.

Ajeeta

Darragh Kenny at Sherry Fitzgerald

Today we were working in Sherry Fitzgerald and it was a great experience. We were learning about their history, who they are and what  they do. Then we were learning css which is about the feedback from their clients and customers. Then we were learning about what an accountant does. My first impression was that it was very professional. And there were more people than I expected. It was a very fancy and well constructed place. We were given very clear instructions. We start at 10 and finish at 3. I hope to learn new skills that will help me in my future. 

Darragh

Seb's Auctioneering W/E Blog

The placement that I am in has been great! I have learned loads although Thursday will be my first day doing actual work experience.We have had no actual work experience yet. I like the tasks as we do them as a team, and they are fun. My employer has been fair and they have taught us loads. I have learned loads to do with things such as Finance, IT, the actual business of Sherry Fitzgerald, and Auctioneering which I found very interesting. I have had no problems. Seb

Seb Ironing Shirts for Church Collection before Work Experience

 

Hannah's Penney's Blog

Day 1: On my first day, I went to a buyers meeting. All the workers discussed sales, stock and cover of their clothing. I found it really interesting. The girl who I'm shadowing for the week is called Laura. She is really nice. She showed me a program on her computer that tells her everything about sales, stock and cover. Its an amazing system. It tells you the stock and sales in every Penneys store there is. There are stores in the UK and Northern and Southern Ireland. Laura showed me around the office and the mail room. She had me doing typical office tasks for the day. She explained what she was doing while she worked, so I could get a sense of the kind of job she does.
it was a really good day and I am looking forward to the rest of the week. I am learning lots already and I'm liking the idea of this as a career.

Day 3: I've been getting on really well. I did lots of filing, I photographed lots of clothes for next years collections, I put them onto the computer and organised them into folders. I have been sorting out clothes and putting them into boxes in a nice, orderly way:) I was carrying lots of boxes up to the stock room. I'm really loving it.

Day 5: Well I have really enjoyed my work experience. I went into the office not knowing what went on there, and came out with a great knowledge and understanding of the fashion and buying industry.

Izzy on Work Experience in Clarion Hotel

Sophie's Pimary School Work Experience Blog

I am enjoying my work experience. It has definitely helped me in thinking more about taking up  teaching as a future career. I am learning that in the world of teaching especially primary students you must be extremely patient and kind natured and give the students constant encouragement when helping them with a task. There is absolutely nothing I dislike about any of the tasks I have been given because I see each task as an opportunity to learn and observe.

My employer is being very fair and is constantly explaining everything to me which is really helping.

Sophie

Sophie in JS Primary School Enjoying her Work Experience

Jharkhali India collection at Donnybrook Church Sunday 27th October

Seb ironing t-shirts for church collection before going to work experience

 We held a church gate collection at Donnnybrook Church last weekend and the parishioners again dug deep (they have supported us every year since 2002). The priests gave a great talk at each Mass praising our school, our students and our education project in the Sunderbans.The Calcutta School Building Fund benefitted by €2045 which is brilliant and will go a long way to supporting our project in Jharkhali next  January.

Hannah, Christian and Clara at Donnybrook Church for India collection

Mass-Goers Contribute to India Collection