Make it Monday - Knitted Blanket

Today I'm sharing my knitted blanket with you. After a year of knitting one patch almost every week, it's finished! It's so warm, I love the colours and it shows so many techniques that I have learned.

Next, I'll be crocheting a decorative edge and knitting a matching cushion.

I can't recommend the Simple Stylish magazines enough. I've enjoyed the knitting one so much that I recently signed up for and started the crochet course too! It's available in English and German.

Language Learning

The other day, while avoiding jobs on my to-do list, I was flicking through Duolingo. It's a language learning app that I've written about before. I use it to practise German, Spanish and Turkish every day.

They're always updating it and I added some more languages to my list. I dabbled with Swedish before our Stockholm trip in March. It's great for picking up the basics quickly before a trip.

I repicked up Russian. I first took a Russian course at my last school six years ago and was suprised how quickly I could get back into it, though the keyboard may eventually present a problem.

Finally I had a little go with Esperanto. This is an artificial language created as a simplified language for all. It was different and interesting having things in common with other languages but at the same time, using them differently.

Have a go here!

Girl Power

Becoming a homeowner has led to me trying several new things over the last month or so, and while none of those things were on my lists, it's been quite empowering.

Before the move, I had never painted a room before. I've now painted six with help from family. I've learned how to prepare the room and how to clear up afterwards too.  First it has made me very grateful for all the times my dad painted our rooms growing up - thanks Dad! (I'm afraid Isabella may be doing her own when she gets bored of yellow.) It also makes me wonder how my grandad did this as a job. I'm exhausted each Saturday when we are done.

My favourite new thing was building the above log fire. To be honest, I'm a little afraid of things like that and normally leave them to my chemistry teacher husband but he taught me how to do it this week and I felt quite proud of myself.

I'm sure there will be many more things to learn over the next few years as we get the house done and work on the garden and I'm really looking forward to it!

28 things...Finish my French Course

 

Ever since my first interview to train to be a teacher, people have been advising me that to teach in England, I would need to brush up my French.  Having read all the headlines about England's shortage of language teachers, I thought they were exaggerating, after all, I had two languages already.  

Having enough to get through with the PGCE and MA, I let time go by and forgot all about my French until it lost me my first teaching job after a year, and started to really limit my opportunities for the future.  I'm still pretty bitter about the situation in England - making languages an optional subject at GCSE was what ruined my career in England before it even started.

Anyway, during the year before I came to Germany, I enrolled on a distance learning French AS-Level course.  I was working at a languages college after all, so I had the opportunity to practise my speaking with native speakers, use resources at work, and they even agreed to let me sit the exams there.

And then my life changed and I moved to Germany.  Luckily for me in some ways, the system is completely different here.  Of course you still have to have a degree in your subjects but once you have a job you can teach many subjects having never studied them since you were in school yourself.  I have one colleague who teach sport, music, history, geography and social studies.  This system means that if I really wanted to teach French and felt confident enough, it would be possible.  Even better than that is that, although it is proving a trial to get a contract to work here permanently, it's finally not because of my lack of French!  (Also, it turns out that what has meant that I can work here is my Spanish because I can't qualify as a German teacher for obvious reasons and I can't qualify as an English teacher because I have never studied English - crazy.)  

Unfortunately, although I have joined a conversation class here and worked my way to the end of the course, I can't have the time off work to go to England and take the exams.  I even looked into the possibility of taking the exams at the international school here in Bremen, but they don't teach AS or A Level.  While this is a disappointment, I really enjoyed the course anyway and am considering the A-Level in a couple of years time.  I plan to carry on with French one way or another once I have taken some time out to work on my German and Spanish a bit more, especially as my Spanish is likely to be more of a challenge with an older teaching group next year for the first time since my training.

French was my first foreign language and it will always have a place in my heart and in our office, so I will come back to it and am glad I stuck it out with this course.