I cannot believe it has already been a month since I last posted anything. And I thought I was actually doing quite well updating regularly and slacking off too much anymore. Anyhow, April is past, welcome May. It passed quite uneventfully I must say, with a nice balance of work and free time. It is getting easier and easier to find work and my monthly salary is, on average, on the rise. Last week was actually my first week of full-time teaching in over two years and, though it was hard, it was also rather satisfying. The fact that I do not really have anything to do this (very short) week compensates rather well for working 12-hour days last week.
Poor Olaf is also having a hard time, because he has to write a report on the cost of Germany's participation in the Afghanistan war in about two weeks. As the deadline is today, I basically have not seen him much lately. Of course, we did do more than work last month and you can find a short account of the Queen's Day party, Cobie & Peter's visit and last weekend's dinner party on Olaf's website.
What I really wanted to blog about today, however, is a little questionnaire I found through somebody else's blog. It seemed like fun and I wanted to publicly answer it myself as well. Here goes:
1. I am a good teacher because...
I am a good listener and know how to stimulate people and pull them out of their shells. I believe students have to feel they can trust their teachers to really open up and overcome their inhibitions. After all, if one does not try, one does not fail; and if one does not fail, one cannot learn from one's own mistakes by (self-)correction. Having a teacher who is not always talking him/herself but actually induces you to speak, especially when you are a low-level or not confident student, is a big plus. They best lesson I can teach is one where I sit back and listen, not having to correct a single mistake.
2. If I weren’t a teacher, I would be...
teaching people things in some other way. I guess I would be a university researcher focused on uncovering some hidden truth about Greek & Roman culture, the origins of Christianity or the impact of the bronze age Middle Eastern cultures on the rest of the world. I could be debating theological questions or analysing philosophical systems with the idea of writing a book to enlighten others. Or perhaps I would just be a writer, or a poet. Or just drunk all the time.
3. My teaching style is...
a nice mix between presenting myself as one of the group and authoritatively presenting new ideas. Ideally, we are just a group of people trying to tackle a grammatical issue, analysing a text or having a conversation about a certain topic. I try to be as little of a teacher as possible and establish myself on the same level as my students. Obviously, this is not always possible as I do have to explain things and correct people, but I try to do it more in a colloquial hierarchy-free way rather than maintaining the traditional teacher-student relationship. I want to be respected and demand attention when necessary, but no more and no less than any other member of the group is respected and is allowed the floor when wanted and/or necessary.
4. My classroom is...
not a classroom. It is usually a meeting room or someone's office, and every now and then someone's private home or a bar. It it also never mine. Other people decide where I teach and I make do with what is there. I bring my own stuff and try to advocate the placement of a whiteboard an/or flipchart in the room but sometimes resistance is simply futile.
5. My lesson plans are...
either nice, well-prepared, well-thought out, theoretically comprehensive fool-proof plans or just a few key words dribbled on a piece of recyclable paper and usually out of the window in 5 minutes. Groups have their own dynamics and it pays to have more than one thing prepared. In the end, it often does not really matter what you do, as long as you do it in English and everybody practises.
6. One of my teaching goals is...
to make people more confident using the language and get a feel for it. Someone who has done a course with me does not necessarily speak English that much better, but they usually understand the mechanics of the language much better and believe they can use it with some more practice. In the long run, this makes it much easier for them to acquire new vocabulary or grammatical exceptions and it therefore increases both fluency and accuracy at the same time.
7. The toughest part of teaching is...
being informative as well as entertaining all the time. Being a good teacher means always being personally interested, remembering the most insignificant details about your students' lives, making a direct connection, constantly working on gaining and keeping your students' trust, having some jokes ready, keeping eye contact and never ever letting a student feel you are not interested in whoever they are and whatever it is they are talking about. While also making sure they learn something, that is. A good teacher with a lot of work is mentally exhausted when he comes home and never wants to interact with people again. It goes without saying that full-time teaching destroys your social life.
8. The thing I love most about teaching is...
learning so much every single day. I know it is supposed to be all about what other people learn from you and helping them on their way, and it is, but it works both ways. I meet people from all walks of life, from secretaries to general managers to sales executives to car mechanics to lawyers to struggling highschool students. They all have their own lives and interests and know things I would never have guessed could be known. When your students trust you, they trust you with everything. Besides countless whispered secrets of a romantic nature, I know about hostile takeovers being planned, surprises for significant others, as yet unpublicised new marketing strategies, top-secret presentations, future budgets and what people really think about their bosses, colleagues and subordinates. The best way to learn a language is to try to teach native speakers of that language another one, you will not believe how much I pick up from the constructions my students use and the words they ask me the English translation of. But it is not just about knowing other people's secrets and being trusted with them, I am also constantly confronted with knowledge I could use and ideas that make me reflect on my own life. For instance, I learnt the off-side rule from a football reporter in Milan, some ingenious ways to draw attention to one's own product when advertising oneself and several contradicting philosophies on what is really important in life, was taught some time-saving secrets about Excel by a computer whizzkid, a publisher gave me a brilliant idea for a book I want to write, an advertising manager came up with the best graduation present ever and someone (who shall remain anonymous) even suggested interesting ways of holding onto your partner when the sparks do not really fly anymore after several years of marriage.
9. A common misconception about teaching is...
that it is easy and anyone can do it. Simply knowing how to speak a language does not mean you can teach it. You have to understand how it works and find ways of explaining that to others while keeping in my mind that different people need different approaches. When you are just starting out you have to make sure you learn your grammar backwards and you should remember always to read a text thorougly before discussing it with your students. The 'You just say it like this' approach is usually not appreciated and, though there will always be specific things you do not know and need to look up, your grammar and general vocabulary have to be accessible and ready to be spontaneously elicited at all time, even when you have not prepared a lesson on that subject - which, let's face it, happens more often than not.
10. The most important thing I’ve learned since I started teaching is...
that I am quite good at it and can see myself doing this for the rest of my life. There will be interesting people I can learn things from wherever I go. Oh, and that languages rule. Studying languages is fun and an activity that you could easily centre your life on but, since most people do not get paid just for studying, teaching languages is a good second.
What do you guys think?
