Teach English in Gaoshan Zhen - Datong Shi

Many years ago, I left my country to Saudi Arabia, to join my husband, who was working there. Very quickly, a group of people coming from the States discovered that I was the only person around sharing their language and speaking French. They wanted to learn it and persuaded me of doing it. In the middle of the 1980s, not a lot of people had a computer, so we had to travel back home and shop there. Getting the supports to teach French as a foreign language was not an easy task. A few weeks later, I was learning by myself how to teach. In the beginning, it took me something like ten hours to prepare for the first class. Of course, through the time you get some clues. In later life, I was the only person able to teach my native language this time to teenagers coming to study and live in France. They were arriving some from China and others from India. In case of an emergency, we could use a tiny little bit of English but not much. Again I had to work like hell to help them succeed in their goal, which they did. Finally, French people heard me talk to British tourists and again came to me for help. I can compare those situations to becoming parents. At school, we never learn to take care of a child, never learn how to teach him how to speak. We don’t learn to be good parents. We have to study and appreciate, analyse the results of our actions and try to improve ourselves. This situation is not comfortable, and you are never sure to do it well, precisely like teaching French or English as a second language either to young learners or to adults. Somehow as much as you care about your children, you care about your learners. A mother or father respecting her/his children will make sure to be on time to pick them up at school. The same way, you always arrive far in advance before the first class of the day. It is essential to prepare everything, checking materials like the overhead projector, the speakers, and the computer, getting all elicitations, studies and activities ready to be used. Then, take a little time to cool down, to feel happy, positive, confident and relaxed, ready for the best time in class. For as many years as I have taught, I have never had two classes alike, neither two learners nor two years exactly similar. With all the time needed to prepare lessons and materials, I never had time for professional development as I always had another job apart from teaching. Of course, it involved English speaking, in International Commerce, for example. English has always been a passion even if we never stop learning it, so is Teaching. But investing in ourselves as a teacher is essential for both our skills as a teacher and our mental and emotional wellbeing, at the same time developing lessons and managing our classroom. So, I decided to start ITTT teaching skills courses. I sometimes discovered new ways of considering a subject, for example about the tenses (the fact to group present tenses as well as past and future tenses), some other times the course was confirming my way of transmitting information. To obtain on my own some explanation, I had to study, analyse and think of the easiest way for the learners to understand and that took ages. A teacher’s work is never done, and that’s especially true for ESL teachers or any person teaching his/her native language. I’ve read that something as simple as swapping ideas with one of your coworkers will help in professional development, but I’ve never been in that situation, never had coworkers to share anything or any ideas. Since I started learning teaching skills with ITTT, I check my lesson plans for the next day and begin to see patterns in what I do. I always review the tasks done after a day of class as I e-mail supports and a summary of what we have done to my students. It helps me record the type of activities we did and how students reacted and how they retained the information treated. Of course, I never stop putting myself in questions, taking notes of the learners’ ideas or reactions. So why learning teaching skills is essential? Because even if as I did, you dedicate all your free time teaching yourselves through books, it is crucial to learn methodology, to understand your role and what to expect from students, to develop your skills teaching grammar and vocabulary, productive and receptive skills. More difficult is to evaluate and test learners as well as prepare lesson plans. Without learning teaching skills, your students won’t know how and where you are carrying them in their learning. They might get lost and demotivated. Without professionals to drive you on the right way to manage classes or troubleshooting or where to search course books, lesson materials and teaching aids, teaching is much more complicated and unrewarding. Teaching without learning teaching skills is very stressful, even if you do it with love, if you are gifted, you will never know if you do it correctly and if your adult students will not examine your teaching critically or if they will not just leave your class! Finally, a professional teacher should always engage in continuing education. Nowadays, thanks to the internet, even if you live away from universities or big metropolises as I do, a teacher can continuously improve his/her knowledge from course content, teaching methods, innovative technology and classroom management and teachers as educators should be engaged in lifelong learning. Now, France is unique, as usual! So any international certification or diploma can be recognised worldwide but not in France. So, even if learning teaching skills with ITTT is essential to me and will still be, the European Global School accreditation and seal will also be crucial.