The Joys of Teaching

This creative writing blog, as its title suggests, focuses on various pleasurable aspects of teaching.

Learning new skills

Unless you were born into a family of teachers who taught you the basics before you qualified, then the road to becoming a teacher should be a real learning curve. CELTA is a good example. First, you’ll need to be brave and get up in front of groups of strangers and test your metal while being observed. If you find it hard to take criticism, then now’s the time to shake it off to get through teaching practice. To become a better teacher, you will observe your peers as well as a host of teacher trainers. This is invaluable as you will pick up all kinds of tips, which could include improvisation, methods of teaching pronunciation, miming and using hand gestures, to name but a few. Of course, you will need to do an assignment and the tempo of the course, especially alongside a part time job, for example, can be stressful. Skills that are also worthy of mention are following instructions, lesson planning, organising your time and prioritising. Discovering the wonders of teaching for the first time, sharing the experience with fellow trainees and becoming aware of how much there is to learn are a handful of high-lights.

Individualism

Being yourself is under-rated. If you have worked for a boss for too long, you may forget what it’s like to lead from the front. Depending on the regime of where you work, your role may change backwards and forwards from follower to leader. Working in a school is quite different in this respect as you are answerable to a co-ordinator or the school principle rather than yourself or clients when you have your own business. Nevertheless, we all tend to be obligated to follow some kinds of guidelines to varying degrees; sometimes creating courses is possible or perhaps sticking closely to a curriculum or coursebook. At times, we are given the freedom to put our own personal stamp on a course, which will be a sheer delight to some, but to others it may seem like their worst nightmare. The reason for this is that some people work better when they are led whilst others only show their true selves when they are given free reign. Sadly, it could be that in your work life up until you teach, you were never able to be yourself. If you list three of your best qualities, i.e. being creative, friendly and witty, could you honestly say that you managed to exhibit your characteristics at work? The delightful factors that edify and shouldn’t be taken for granted are: being given room to manoeuvre, finding yourself and self-expression.

The craft

Teaching is an art-form and it should never be a case of it's my way or the highway. A good teacher should always strive to improve his/ her techniques and be open to learning. It won’t escape you to know that there are many different elements at play when working in our profession. Whether it be adhering to company rules or as self-employed teachers, who often have a rather different set-up. When we have more experience, then we usually need to prepare less and are generally more secure of ourselves than when we were novices. We don’t need to write script on our plans as we once did, if you can recollect. Some educators don’t use plans at all, which is down to personal choice. There are many avenues to explore though it’s true that some teachers are more ambitious than others. Surely, it can’t be a bad thing to be outside your comfort zone every now and again, can it? Along the way, we will always continue to be assessed or evaluated, so we can stay sharp and remain aware of any shortcomings we may have. A few pleasurable aspects to mention here include fulfilment, job satisfaction and personal development.

Variety is the spice of life

Couldn’t agree more. Again, it depends on the programme where you teach. At schools, changes are often made such as new novels for English literature or new exams/ preparation courses for English language. Via a language centre, on the other hand, when you are given carte blanche to design a 10 or 15-week course, then, the sky is your limit. Creating material allows you to change your tasks every now and again. You can build up your own portfolio and, after a while, know exactly what the answers are without having to spend time looking for them. You can make in-jokes on the handouts, refer to current events, adapt exercises to fit individuals or classes, and, to cut a long story short, undoubtedly save yourself a lot of bother when planning lessons. Enjoyable aspects are being creative by diversifying materials, having plenty of choice and, indirectly, by not getting bored.

Meeting new people

Despite there being a healthy distance between the learner and the teacher, it is possible to form a bond with a student. This dynamic is rather different with adults than it is for children and with 1-on-1 as opposed to in a group. If you work in a place where there are lots of students from different countries, then you may find it fascinating to learn about different cultures; this could affect language learning just as it may impact classroom management with different ideas on discipline and how to behave in different situations. As a freelance teacher, when you have a custom-made course, you usually get to know your student very well and if you go for a personal approach, then you will be familiar with his/ her family situation, hobbies and quirks. You will learn about how different people learn, their jobs, their industries and what makes them tick. When you’re teaching kids for a few years, you will know them like the back of your hand and, for some kids that is very important, as they need continuity and stability. It is also very helpful when giving them the best a school can offer, so information can be shared with colleagues, co-ordinators and parents. For school teachers, satisfaction may also come further down the line, when all that hard work pays off and the students' progress can be celebrated. The last set of euphoric components that shine through are: creating rapport, personability and pride.

Selected reading by the author

https://www.dhirubhai.net/pulse/teachers-experts-daniel-israel/ - Teachers as Experts

https://www.dhirubhai.net/pulse/teachers-psychologists-daniel-israel/?published=t – Teachers as Psychologists

https://www.dhirubhai.net/pulse/teachers-learners-daniel-israel/?published=t – Teachers as Learners

https://www.dhirubhai.net/pulse/teaching-privelege-daniel-israel/?published=t – Teaching is a Privilege

https://www.dhirubhai.net/pulse/teacher-daniel-israel/?published=t – The Teacher

https://www.dhirubhai.net/pulse/creativity-classroom-daniel-israel/ - Creativity in the Classroom

https://www.dhirubhai.net/pulse/personal-approach-daniel-israel?published=t – The Personal Approach

https://www.dhirubhai.net/pulse/students-daniel-israel/?published=t – The Students

https://www.dhirubhai.net/pulse/motivator-daniel-israel?trk=prof-post – Teachers as Motivators