Today’s teaching workshop

Today, I attended a teaching workshop hold by headquarter (or so-called Main Branch) and I was a little disappointed.

The workshop started at 3:00 PM. Since it was cold and pouring outside, I left home early in order to be on time. When I arrived, I double checked my watch. It was three o’clock sharp. However, when I looked down at the sign-up sheet, there was a mark beside my name which said “LATE”. I was not the only one being upset. There were couple other ladies also marked late, one of them came up to the front desk and asked, “What’s your definition of being late? We were here at exactly 3 o’clock, according to our watches!” And one of the receptionists said, “Sorry. But according to the clock inside the classroom, it was 3 when we stared the workshop.” The lady got angrier and said, “Oh! So what kind of stander dose THAT clock base on? *Greenwhich Mean Time? ” I also gave my complain out loud, too. I had tried so hard not to be late, but still I was marked as one just because of the clock inside that classroom was three minutes ahead. So what the hell? I might as well not come and stay home enjoy my weekend! Not to mention that so many people are just one minute late because of the bad weather. What could we say?

Second, I was disappointed about the speaker. Well, not to be rude or something, but I thought, “Hey, you are the speaker from main branch, your English must be great!” I don’t mean the speaker’s English is bad. Actually, she speaks ok. Yet, just “OK”. Nothing amazes me. The accent, the pronunciation, the wording, the usage of slang… I mean, if someone has to stand in front of more than a hundred teachers, talking about English teaching, shouldn’t it be someone “really, really good”? And this is the second time I feel like this about the workshop. Perhaps they will have someone better next time.

Even something unpleasant happened today, (that stupid clock), the workshop did give me some new ideas on teaching. Just hope the next workshop will be better and I will definitely be there 30 minutes early next time!!!!!

*note: Actually, she said “中原標準時間” in Chinese, I just translate it into Greenwhich Mean Time.