Being an English teacher

Being an English teacher is beyond speaking English
How many people do you really know that, when asked what they would like to be when they were kids, would say they wanted to be an English teacher? Probably none. We know how it works. We want to be a doctor, a president or even an astronaut, but not an English teacher, oh no, not an English teacher!

Sometimes, if not always, we try something else instead. Let’s say, we start by working in an office, store or perhaps with our family. Then, for some reasons, we end up teaching English. That’s exactly how it happened to me, at least. I had all sorts of jobs before becoming an English teacher.. But quite honestly, I fell in love with it after my first month and here I am, writing something about being an English teacher.

Teaching is as valuable a profession as medicine, or law, accountancy and so on. Teaching is noble, rewarding and exciting. But it is also tough and hard work. Then, a piece of advice: start it with pride and determination. If you think it is easy then, again, think twice! I am not talking about those “teachers” who can speak good English but are not teachers inside. No! I am talking about a kind of professional that cares about the human being, a professional that wants to improve his/her skills daily and wants to take students to a higher level of understanding.

Certain skills are essential for teachers, maybe the first one is being able to speak the language and I mean it! For the ones who think that spending some time abroad means going to Disney on vacation and then coming back to start teaching, I have another piece of advice: think again! On the other hand, holding international certificates and having good English are not the only thing we should worry about. We know that the fact you can speak English does not mean you can teach it. There are so many native speakers in Brazil who pretend to be English teachers and that it is almost impossible for a student to know what to do: “Should I have English classes with a native speaker or not?” It really depends. Taking into account that this native teacher is a good professional, it may be a possibility. But he/she might not know what a basic student needs when it comes down to explaining vocabulary. I have an example. When I was the coordinator at Lexical – Itajaí, I hired a Russian teacher with amazing English. She had studied and lived in the U.S. for quite some time. Well, once I was having a class appraisal and a Lexical-two student asked her what guilty meant. She gave a sort of dictionary explanation but the student did not seem to be quite comfortable with that. After class, during the feedback, I explained that she should have gone for something simpler. And to my surprise she said, “And I did”. Then I explained to her that something simpler would be just a single word and this word would be “innocent”.

Another important aspect of being a teacher is to like people. You must try to be in tune with their thoughts. We deal with human minds and there is nothing more complicated than humans. People are moody, shy, and so on. They also have different paces of learning. We have no idea or whatsoever how to make sure a student learns. What we know is that under certain ideal circumstances, learning is more likely. There is no guarantee learning will occur, but it’s more probable. Most students are really perfectionists and this is pretty negative towards their learning process. They are sometimes too hard on themselves. Students must take risks. We must encourage them to make mistakes. Otherwise they will never learn! Phil Ruggiero, a native from New York City, who has extensive experience in the field of ELT once said, “I was in São Paulo, determined to speak Portuguese. So I investigated every word using a dictionary. Pillow: travesseiro, sheet: lençol. And off I went to a department store. In the store I approached a salesman and politely requested: “Estou procurando um grande, macio traseiro”. He looked at me amused and said something like, “Todos nós estamos procurando, meu senhor!” For some reason, I have never confused the word ‘travesseiro’ again! It is fixed in my mind. I risked it. I made a mistake. I paid a social disgrace, but I learned the word.” I also had a similar experience when I was working in a house in London. This lady had hired me to do a spring cleaning in her house. We both had a bucket in hands. Instead of asking the lady for her bucket, I asked her for her bowel. She looked at me thinking I was Hannibal Lecter. Boy, that was hilarious!

All in all, being an English teacher is very rewarding. It is just awesome when your student returns from a trip and tells you how great he did abroad. If you’re in it only for the money, watch out! Being an English teacher is more than entering a room thinking about how much money you can make per hour.