Interview with a Teacher

I recently asked a colleague, Dominic, if he would kindly answer some questions about his experiences of teaching English as a foreign language. “It's for my blog,” I told him. He eyed me suspiciously for a moment, but then said he would cooperate on the condition that I don't use his real name.

So, Dominic, when did you start teaching?
I answered a job advert on Dave's ESL Cafe in 2015. It was for a teaching position in a town in Poland. I'd just completed a CELTA course and I thought that teaching abroad would give me an opportunity to see more of the world. That's what I thought, anyway.

Something tells me that it wasn't what you expected?
The owner of the school in Poland was, to put it bluntly, a bit of a weirdo. The walls of his office were covered with photographs of various people he'd met on his travels -- hundreds of them -- and there were cameras installed in the classrooms. He routinely spied on my lessons. He didn't always pay me on time as well. I spent the loneliest winter of my life in a strange town, but I made a few friends as time went on. To be honest, I was relieved when the contract ended.

What were the students like?
I taught teenagers mostly. Some of them were keen and quite chatty, and others were rather quiet and obstinate. I got the feeling that I was keeping them from other more important demands on their time, which I suppose is to be expected when your students have had a whole day of school and then have to go to an additional English class. One thing I noticed was how certain words were mispronounced, like the word 'biscuit'. Apparently, their teacher at school had taught them to pronounce it like 'biscwit'. I had to nip that in the bud. There were a handful of adult groups, too, comprised mainly of young professionals who wanted to practise speaking and improve their vocabulary and grammar. Most of them could hold a simple conversation in English, but there was one older guy who could barely put a sentence together. He was obviously in the wrong group.

Have you taught in any other countries?
After Poland I went to China and worked for a well-known language school. The range of students was broad and I often had as many as twenty in a class. I met plenty of expats, some who'd been there for several years and took it upon themselves to lecture me on everything they'd learned about Chinese language and culture. We formed our own little expat bubble; it was a way of preserving a sense of familiarity in surroundings that seemed quite alien at times. I'm glad I got a chance to visit the Great Wall just before Covid-19 burst onto the scene. In February 2020, I fled the country and taught solely online from then on.

What are your thoughts on teaching online?
One advantage of teaching via Zoom or Teams is that you have a wealth of resources at your fingertips. Pictures, videos and games really add value to the lessons. I teach mostly individual students, but I've also taught groups, which is more of a challenge, especially when you have background noise to contend with. A student once joined my lesson while she was driving. Okay, I thought, there goes the lesson plan! You can't do any reading, grammar or vocabulary exercises in that situation. Teaching online isn't ideal, and when there are connection problems or power cuts, it's impossible. It's a growing market, however, and there seems to be no shortage of companies vying for business. Pay rates vary widely, so it's always good to find out more about a company before applying. Some employers insist on you registering as self-employed, for example, which is fine in my case as I'm freelance now.

Do you have any more advice for new teachers?
You're entering a largely unregulated global industry, so my advice is to proceed with caution. Small, private schools are ones to watch out for, but larger companies sometimes don't treat their teachers fairly either. It's a bit of a lottery really.