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Today was my first working day this term. I am fully booked
with a few slots daytime on Mondays and Wednesdays. One
group, attending once a week, cancelled lessons until
mid-February because of their job. I am not happy and
I need to think of a replacement. I bought ‘Telephone
English’ and am indulging into it.
I cannot get rid of Joe Dassin’s ‘The guitar don’t lie’
tune in my ears. This song is fantastic! I’ve done
most of my fiction writing with it in the background
(making my characters do crazy stuff, but anyway).
What’s new…Well, there are some good news.
1. I am finally getting a sense of achievement in the BE teaching
course that I will start in the last week of January. I received a
sample contract and the phone call will come on Monday. I really
fancy the way they do business, with all these emails and calls!
2. Yesterday I received that putting off email and thought about
a swift career change but today I got an email from the
Czech Republic saying I do qualify. I could teach in Prague.
(insert a drool here) However, currently they are looking
for people to start in February, which is not good for me.
3. LCCI FTBE course is culminating tomorrow in the form
of an exam. It is going to be 2.30 hours long. I feel confident
and all things should go just fine. This course was a shock to me
because it gives a real image of Business English and now
I see that what I used to teach as BE was actually an
instant coffee, if you know what I mean.
That’s about it for tonight.
A few days ago I emailed several agencies asking whether it would be possible to get a short-term (summer) contract with them. These are agencies and language schools abroad. I included the information that I had an M.A. in English philology and that I have teaching experience, plus several certificates (CELTA). This is what I got from one agency (will keep the author anonymous):
(quote) The unfortunate reality of the ESL market is that the governments of most countries require that individuals applying for teaching visas are citizens of English speaking countries. These are defined as countries where English is the first language and they are limited to the following: Canada, America, South Africa, Australia, New Zealand and the UK . This has absolutely NOTHING to do with your proficiency in the English language but is simply the government regulation.
There may be some opportunities for you in China . Unfortunately, at this time (company name) does not work with any schools there who are open to this and we suggest you apply directly to the schools. (end quote)
This just makes me feel 6 years of my life (spent gaining education and qualification) are just down the drain. Makes me want to change my job. Anybody knows where cleaners are needed?
Yesterday I had a few lessons and got a cash injection. This made it
possible buy a monthly ticket and make copies. I prepared my
lessons for the week starting January 14, but I still need to
prepare the first two lessons for beginner students. I usually
hate such lessons because it’s lots of new info for them to
process and they are very stressfull for me.
Today it is -15′C and that sort of outs me off from going
downtown to fetch some handouts I need and visit a bank.
Hopefully, I will manage to. I also need to water my plant in
the office for it seems to be dying.
I had a trial lesson (well, I thought, it’s some cash anyway)
and the person liked it. Now she’s on my student list, twice
per week. I get more queries about lessons and now it’s
a real problem to arrange the timetable to suit all students.
The Business English course is hanging in the air. They
postponed it for a wek (emailed me saying they hope I
don’t mind and I said that i actually do) and still no
sample contract. The pay is quite good and I would hate to
lose this contract but I cannot wait forever when my
old students come back ready to pay here and now!
Should they not offer me a contract until the end of
this fortnight, I will decline.
Next week is for my Business English Teaching
course. I hope it’s going to be useful and I will meet
interesting people. Also, I’m looking around to move
my website onto a paid server and have a professional
design. I’m quite satisfied with its current version but
it seems it’s too simplistic.
So far so good.
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.
