Freelance Teacher of English

I found some time to wind dust from my old articles. Here is
one of them:

Strange as it may seem, one of my students said he wanted
to learn ‘how to communicate’ but he refused to learn the
conjugation of verbs, which makes the whole notion of
communication absurd. He thought he could go by with using
simple structures and not minding the grammar. In English,
this could equal to the sentence like ‘I are going to the shop
yesterday’ : communication takes place but the level of
success is difficult to say.
As I was collecting the material and working on my article
„Using Translation in A Foreign Language Classroom“, I could
finally put a finger on that strange sensation I have been
experiencing ever since strating to follow the principles of
the communicative language teaching back in 2005. As for
today, I believe this aproach brings more harm than use.
First of all, the teacher is put in a very stupid situation both
as a person and a professional when one is trying to explain
the meaning of a word or phrase to an elementary class
instead of translating. When the students still fail to understand,
the embarrasement is dificult to put down in writing.
Next, there is a notion of time economy. One can explain grammar
rules in five or fifteen minutes. I vote for less which in a
time-constrainted lesson means more. The students put down
the rule, which is clear to them, and can practice it in English
for the rest of the lesson and the sky is not going to fall down
on them.
People tend to think that the communicative appraoch
to language means that they can go about with their broken
grammar because the most important thing is that other
people understand the message even with broken grammar,
so why bother? I don’t think this is right. Sucessful
communication is successful grammar.

I intend to make it into an article, so if you know any
literature I should have a look at or you want to add your
opinion, please leave a comment.

There it is, Christmas period. Some students left on holidays and
I have 6 days off, unplanned. I have a timetable for the week
after Christmas that will give me a cash injection to survive the
last days of the year. I have bought the presents, paid bills and
taxes. I don’t have any money to save up as Oslo and teacher
training course ate out a hole in my budget, but I have no
regrets. I am working on my timetable for the next term and
organizing teaching materials. The slow period is here,
let’s see how long it will last.

At the moment I have two working pre-contract offers to teach
in-company, one for general and one for business English. I also
received an email for possible future partnership with a travelling
agency; they are thinking of doing some related teaching
activities. Yay!

Today I went to meet with a potential client. The travelling is quite
normal but not the best, I’d have to change three means of transport
on my way back and start early in the mornings. They will let me know
on Monday if they want me or not.

One thing was hillarious: the groups were not tested for their levels
and they asked for trial lessons. I said it was an interesting idea, they
understood

I also paid my rent for the office and bought a few teacher’s books.
That would save time preparing as now I have to do all the exercises
myself.

Today I had a call from one man who was interested in English lessons.
After exchanging some info, he asked: ‘what id I don’t like it?’ I asked
what that was supposed to mean. He said he wanted to know what
would be if he didn’t like the course after a few lessons. I wanted
to ask what would be if *I* didn’t like *him* but I withheld. I said
there would be no money back. With such a policy, all language
courses would go bankrupt! Plus, knowing how ‘objective’ people
usually are in deciding whether they like the course or not (e.g.
our teacher is too artistic. Our teacher gives too much grammar
(level 1). Our teacher gives us too much homework/homework
in general.)

This weeks has been crazy but it’s about to end. I need to buy
myself a Christmas present. I was considering a teacher’s book
for one of my courses.

A few days ago I received an email from a company in Vilnius.
We are meeting this Friday tod iscuss further details. They
have three groups (13 people in general) and want 1,5h
lessons for each group twice a week. What seems to burden me
is the distance to be covered, about 45min by public transport.
But if we make a deal, I won’t have to have more lessons that
day because a) it would be full b) the pay should be good.

WISH ME LUCK AND TOUCH WOOD.