I have been away from my blog for almost one month!…  Hopefully everyone had a great Holiday Season and forgot about the PSC SLE testing for a couple of weeks… Did I? Not really… because I knew that three of my trainees had to work on preparing their oral interaction exams that will be held in the week of January 18… I saw them this week and they are quite anxious!… Yet I know that they will perform just fine when time will come!

When I got back from my trip, I had very good news!… Though unexpected, Sam had been called in for his oral interaction interview just a few days before Christmas and he thought that he would not get his C since he felt that he needed more preparation time… Well, he got an E and he was thrilled!

Congratulations Sam!

And Kelly, who had missed her appointment in late September, finally went for her oral interaction test in Victoria and she also got an E… Back in the summer of 2009, her examiner had given her a mere B… At the time, I could not believe it since, in my book, this young woman was bilingual!… I believe that people who take this exam without knowing what it is really about perform poorly because of the nature of the questions… In Kelly’s case, all it took was a few hours of good preparation to polish her speech and adopt useful strategies…

Congratulations Kelly!

Of course, such great news certainly lifted my spirits in order to tackle 2010 with optimism…  In spite of the numerous flaws in the SLE testing process, my students manage to meet the language requirements of government’s job positions…

Except for Corey, who still has not been invited to take the oral interaction test, there are no pending cases… Next week will be hectic for me with three people to train and comfort until they take their tests on January 18, 19 and 20… I am expecting to be quite stressed!…  Also, new requests came in while I was away… I would not be surprised if there were a flood of testing until the end of March 2010… It will be the end of fiscal year in the PSC and, from experience, all departments try to exhaust their budgets and finish their projects before April.

This month should also bring back at least three of my former trainees who need to get higher levels so that they will meet the language requirements of their new positions… But, almost three weeks away from work gave me the opportunity to refill my energy tank and I am now ready to face the music… Now I only have to get rid of that head cold and accept that I am back under our harsh Canadian climate!…

All I need is to picture this in my head until Spring comes back…

Happy 2010 to everyone!…