Bored? Become a teacher!

I've never tried to blog in English. I wonder why? That's my, sort of, second language. An L2, as linguists call it. How do I know that? LOL, I' m a linguist. Yeh, a linguist like J.R.R. Tolkien, but not a prominent one. I deal with the practice, he was a theorist. He was brilliant, I can be skillful, at the most. And that's what I'm trying to be - a skilled teacher.

It's not an easy job. A good teacher needs well developed social skills. Yes, SOCIAL skills. If you want to teach someone, you need to know their way of understanding the world, their morality and priorities. It might seem to be irrelevant, that your student has a baby daughter that s/he loves playing with, a sports car that s/he loves driving or an unruly dog. S/he will remeber things much better if you are going to explain the linguistic aspects withing the range of her/his problems and interests. It is also very important to switch into thier way of thinking, even if you don't like or dissaprove it. It is very hard if you're not tolerant enough. And it is almost impossible, if you have a group of more than 8-10 students, since people might be too different and their priorities and way of thinking might not overlap. The only thing you can do in a situation like that, would be to move around stereotypical way of thinking, but it never works properly. Been there, done that. The smaller group, the better. A group, of course, works a bit different than an individual. A group should be treated like a single person, it usually has it's own priorities and morality accepted by the minority and representing the point of view of the majority. The individuals can afford to express more vivid and complexed code of behaviour.

The other feature, that most people concern to be the vital one, is professionalism. :) To put it simply - you know what you talk about. Since I teach not only the general English, but also Business English, I need to keep up with the latest news on business and economy. I'm not very eager though, as most of my students usually receive professional info in English and work for foreign companies. Teaching both, GE and BE, means alsothat I need to evaluate more course books and constantly look for new materials. While the new publications are not a problem, it is very difficult to find a book that suits your student's needs. No book is perfect, so I usually end up at preparing a unique list of topics and grammar issues.

So, if you want to become an always-busy-lad/ette, become a language teacher! It will keep you busy forever, since there are tons of materials you need to review and managerial skills to be mastered, not mentioning that you need to brush up your English (or any other language) constantly. Good luck! :D

*on the pic there is a small part of course books, Callan books, dictionaries and other stuff we use.