8:30 - 4:30
As the two schools I teach at gear up for midterms, I once again find myself with extra time on my hands. The term just started in April, so it feels too soon, but I guess if the term ends in July it technically is about the middle of the term. There’s also finals at the end of the term, so it makes sense to do midterms a touch early to at least give students a bit of a break between them. Since I have no classes, I’ve had some extra time to reflect on my experience as an English teacher.
I briefly considered becoming a teacher when I was trying to decide on a career path in high school. I admired my English teachers, enjoyed writing and literature, so it certainly appealed to me. In the end video games won out, but who would have guessed that I’d end up teaching English after all. One of my first jobs outside of retail was actually teaching coding camps for kids. Practically a perfect mix of my interests, teaching and technology.
After about a year running summer camps and teaching after school programs I got a job working at Shopify as a “guru”. I was essentially tech support, though I often ended up teaching customers how to use the various tools available for their different business. Once again, I was doing an interesting blend of technology and teaching. Adults, in some ways, are a lot more difficult to work with than kids. I felt as though I was doing more emotional labor fielding calls from adults all day than I was managing classes of children.
After feeling burnt out I left that job, and eventually got a job working in the games industry. I worked in the games industry for around 2 years or so before going back to school to try and pursue teaching English abroad. I think you all probably know the story from there, and if not there’s plenty of articles for you to check out.
I really enjoy the process of teaching. It’s fun to try and distill your knowledge and communicate it to someone in a way they understand. Every learner is different so you have to try and tailor your approach when you’re working with someone one on one, and use as many different approaches as possible when working with a group. Some people can absorb information just from listening, others need a visual aid, and some people need to actually do something more hands on or tactile before they can gain understanding.
Learning about different teaching methods and techniques was probably one of the more interesting and enjoyable aspects of my two years returning to school. The TESL (Teaching English as a Second Langauge) courses and adult education classes were the most memorable, and the others I was simply trying to check off in order to graduate. The statistics course I took has already long since exited my brain.
As much as I enjoyed all those things in theory, I’ll admit that I quite dislike lesson planning. I find it probably one of the most painful parts of teaching English. Then again, I haven’t done much marking, and I have a feeling that would be a strong contender. I find it difficult to think of activities in the abstract, and can never quite tell how long an activity might take. It’s similarly complicated to gauge the level of difficulty for students. Questions that I think are easy or straightforward as a native English speaker, might still be tough to students still learning the language.
I often feel dread before doing a new lesson, since I’m not sure what aspects of it will work or what might not go according to plan. I assume all teachers feel this to some degree, but if I was teaching to native English speakers I might feel less pressure. While teaching coding camps as long as I understood the material I was teaching I never really worried about how it would go. I felt a lot more flexibility in those situations. Then again, I wasn’t responsible for creating the lessons, I just had to understand and present the material in an easy to understand fashion.
Most of my lessons here feel pretty disjointed. I would go from a self introduction, to Canadian Jeopardy, to numbers, to shopping, to ordering food. I never know what sorts of things they’re covering in their classes when I not present, so I have very little to go off of in terms of their current knowledge of topics. When I was told I would begin teaching second years at my main school, and given the same textbook they were using I felt quite a sense of relief.
I had a jumping off point for my lessons, and could see what sorts of things they might be learning in their other classes. I could still pick and choose what areas I thought were interesting, and treat it like a review or expansion on the topics presented. It’s been helpful to have, but my dislike of lesson planning still remains.
It’s a weird dichotomy, since I feel dread before giving a new lesson, but if the lesson seemingly goes well, I feel rather ecstatic after finishing a class. At times I'm even excited to tweak lessons if I think of ideas on how they could be improved or refined. I enjoy the actual process of teaching enough that it makes all the prep work of lesson planning feel much better in retrospect.
It makes teaching English feel like a job of more highs and lows than I might prefer. Working as customer support for Shopify had a very similar pattern. I felt dread before getting on a call, but would get a spike of energy after a good call. Shopify had much lower lows though, since a bad call could consist of getting yelled at by some entitled business person for things outside my control, and outside reasonable expectations.
It could be my mindset, or overall comfort and confidence with my current job. Working as an English teacher is still fairly new to me, let alone teaching English in a foreign country. Somedays I really enjoy this job, and other days it feels more like a means to an end. I wanted to be an English teacher because I wanted to travel more than anything. It was more of a bonus that I enjoyed the work.
It might also be the kind of structure that JET uses that I find myself rubbing up against. I don’t feel as well integrated into the schools as I could, and sometimes feel underutilized. Then again, the requirements for getting into this position are not extremely high, so the caliber and experience of some ALTs may be on the lower end. Even though I have my TESL certificate, it’s not like that’s a requirement, and while I have some teaching experience, it’s been in different settings.
I might be finding friction with the expectations of the kinds of people who take these positions and my own perceived expertise as a teacher. Then again, having time on my hands is what allows me to write and muse about these experiences, and I find a lot of value in that. For whatever grumbling I might do, I still am struck by the uniqueness of the position I have here.
I get to try and represent Canada and western culture more broadly, while providing my insight as a native English speaker. If nothing else, I get to be the fun novelty teacher who, hopefully, has fun and more varied lessons then they might get otherwise. It made me quite happy when another English teacher told me her classes were wondering where I was when I wasn’t present for a lesson.
I hope the students are able to enjoy my lessons, they may be a pain to make, but I quite enjoy giving each lesson, especially if students respond well to them. The occasional negativity I feel probably stems from wanting to do a good job, I doubt I would feel that way if I didn’t actually like or care about this job. I want to make the lives of my fellow English teachers easier, and provide a unique value to the students if possible.
While some days might drag on, or I put off planning the next lesson for longer than I should, I still think there’s been a lot of value in my time here. I hope as I continue to teach and gain confidence in my abilities and my position here I’m able to get even more out of the experience. I may not continue teaching when I return to Canada, so I want to get the most out of my time here. If I do continue teaching, I doubt I’ll have enough time to keep this blog running while still on the clock!
