Exam registration information for Greece - winter 2006

All this talk about exams and the like has reminded me that I, too have students who want to take some this winter. So I thought I'd put all the necessary information about registration and the fees here so I don't forget. My annual nightmare is that the deadline for one exam or another will expire before I've been able to inform my students. It's not happened yet but I've come pretty close on occasion.

Registration for

ECPE is between 18th and 29th September (cost 85 Euros). The actual exam will be 25th November.

ECCE is until 22nd October (cost to be announced). The actual exam will be 9th December.

ALCE. No registration deadline mentioned (click link to see if that changes later on). The actual exam will be 13th January 2007. Cost to be announced.

FCE/CAE/CPE is between 25th September and 6th October (cost 150 to 175 Euros). The actual exams will be 2nd and 3rd December.

Kratiko B2/Γ1 is between 4th September and 22nd September. (cost 50 - 60 Euros). The actual exams will be 18th and 19th November.

If you think that some students take up to three of these exams at a go then there are indeed a cash cow.

Another day, another book fair

Yep, more of the same as far as the book fair is concerned. An endless stream of books that promise instant success for your students in the now long list of EFL/ESL exams that have taken the place of education. I browsed through some of them only to be disheartened by the awful content. They amount to little more than rehashes of the exam they are supposedly preparing students for. In no case is there any principled development of basic skills. As tools for learning a foreign language they are on par with the Yellow Pages in terms of usefulness.

There are also seminars as well but they amount to little more than 45 minutes ads for the book or series being promoted. They all have catchy titles such as;

"How to successfully prepare your students for the Michigan Examinations."

or

"Targeting exams"

or

Are Michigan exams) really Easier than Cambridge ones ? (sic)

Forget teaching, get me a certificate. In short, the publishers are little better than snake oil salesmen, promising miracle cures for their gullible audience.

On the bright side I did get the chance to talk to Theodora, Roger and many others who are fighting the good fight against all odds.

Lost in Translation

A film that people either love or hate. There seems to be no middle ground, at least if you judge by what people say on IMDB.

I guess if you've ever travelled to a different country under your own steam then you've probably had a Lost in Translation moment. I remember getting off the train in Belgrade and picking up a map of the city from tourist information kiosk and then realising that while all the street names on the leaflet were in Latin script, all the place names in the city were written in Cyrillic. I spent most of my time there trying to figure where the hell I was.

Hedwig And The Angry Inch - Origin Of Love (Japanese)

Imagine a musical in which the Dead Kennedys and ABBA collaborate on a remake of the Rocky Horror Picture Show

Customer feedback

When you ask three euros (four dollars). for a cup of coffee at least have the good manners to make a proper cup, not just semi - caffeinated dish water. The Skopeuterio (Σκοπευτηριο) cafe on the sea front (Leoforos Nikis) has just made it to the top of my s##t list for today. Still, there is a wireless hotspot in the area which means I can give them some instant feed back, blogging style.

After complaining about the filter coffee they had brought me I asked them to give me a fresh cup, at which point they simply came back with stuff that had been hanging around in the pot for hours and had just been microwaved!!! And people complain about Starbucks LOL.

Contrary to popular belief, revenge is a dish best served piping hot so that why I'm putting this on the net. Visitors beware! The Skopeyterio, Thessaloniki is best avoided until they realise that the job of a cafe is to serve coffee, not slops. It's not rocket science, guys.

Actually, the baker's (the name escapes me) at the top of Aristetlous Square, just below Egnatia St opposite the post office has the best filter coffee and it costs just one euro. The only problem is that it is take out only.

Film therapy

When life gets too crappy then there are two film I watch that help me drag ( no pun intended) me out of my gloom;

Hedwig and the Angry Inch

Lost in Translation

And if I see them the world becomes a better, more comprehensible place.

Wake up and smell the coffee

I just finished my private lessons and I thought I just have to write something about what happened to me today or I'll just explode. I went into the school today to talk about my programme over the coming winter. When we discussed this briefly at the start of summer it was made very clear to me that I'd have to commit more hours to the school in the future.

Usually, I do private lessons as that is the only way you can make a living as a teacher here in Greece if you are not in the public sector. The problem is that the more hours I work in the language school the poorer I become. However, imagine my shock when the programme offered was far fewer hours than I had been led to believe and spread all over the week, dramatically limiting my opportunities for private lessons.

If you think that I can get more money being unemployed than I can working a 10-hour teaching programme for advanced students then you understand why I'm less than enthusiastic about taking the school up on their "generous" offer.