Teach English in Wuguanyi Zhen - Hanzhong Shi

I have been working as an Emirates Airlines flight attendant for over 6 years. In order to be accepted you need to first pass multiple group exercises, a written exam and a two on one interview. If you are successful, the company will notify you in six weeks. There are always over a thousand people applying but they only accept a very small number. Two years ago I left the company and moved to Vietnam. Very quickly I noticed a great interest in younger people wanting to become future flight attendants but they were mostly fearful of the Open Day, the two day process of interviews and exercises because they were not sure if their general knowledge or level of English is good enough. It didn’t take long until me and two other friends, all previously working for the same airline, decided to make an 8 day course for anyone interested in applying to become a flight attendant and be better prepared for the application process. Our very first class had 12 students. Needless to say it was a big learning experience for us because now we had to not only follow a strict time table since we were renting the co-working space but at the same time we could see in reality how long exactly should a certain exercise be, how much should we talk and how much should we let the students talk about their experiences and needs. I was glad to notice all of our students were highly motivated because to a lot of them, this was their dream job and finishing our course they would be one step closer to their goal. The class curriculum consisted of up to date group exercises that airlines still use during the application process, English knowledge test and most importantly their English speaking ability. I would tell them about my personal experience how I first started, what problems I faced but would end on a happier note, telling them in the end I did get the job, worked my way up to First Class and it was an amazing journey. I provided the students with both personal and company pictures during my journey as I think real pictures, especially of the one teaching you, motivates you more because it is a true story, not a made up photoshoot. Throughout my personal stories and photos they learned so much more about the lifestyle and the company than they would by just reading a formal text online. It really made them want this job even more. While teaching you are facing all the students and trying to have an equal amount of eye contact with each person. From my personal experience, the ones that nodded the most with a big smile, when it was time for a test, they did not do that well. That told me that I was too focused on telling my story and teaching but I did not go and ask them if they understood me nor did I test them to see if they were following me. The best advantage of a fairly small class is that you can provide individual attention and we did have a whole day of just one on one talks, to tell them what mistakes they were making and how best to improve, to enhance their vocabulary, general knowledge of the airline and most importantly, body language and their speaking skill. In my class we had a range of 21 to 30 year olds. Even though together they are all smiles, they all have very different personalities and it was up to me to make them notice the small mistakes they were making because specifically when applying for Emirates and on your 2 on 1 interview, they are very nice people, however they will always after a few relaxing questions, follow up with a more difficult one. This is where people panic or freeze because they were not expecting such a question or simply they could not come up with the answer in a short amount of time and now they are panicking that the whole interview is going down the drain. Since I have already gone through this process a long time ago and still have many friends working there, I prepared for them the most common and even uncommon questions you should expect to be asked on the day of the interview. As mentioned before, I would do a lot of 1 on 1 with my students while the rest were doing an exercise because they are very different from each other. Some students are very relaxed but overly loud. Others could be very shy or their body language would be totally inappropriate without them even noticing it. Each student was given the same exercise but it really helped that because of the size fo the class I could give individual attention to each which in the end had them all improve by a large margin because they all had a different area to improve on. Usually they younger ones were the most eager and the slightly older often liked to second guess what was being taught. That was actually good because it showed me how important it is to know your material and what you are talking about, otherwise someone can pic up on it and it would be an embarrassing situation for sure. What I really learned from all this is that if you have a very big class, you will do an equally great job as a teacher but unfortunately you will not be able to cater to everyone and even though the information you provide is of great help, some people need a bit more personal time. Some are reluctant to ask a question because nobody else is doing it so they don’t want to be that guy/girl. With a small class we were able to keep the class very motivated, the group exercises were always a great ice breaker before each class as it gave a chance for everyone to speak up and we encouraged for questions to be asked. Unknowingly, through these pair or group exercises they became much more comfortable and relaxed than they were on the first day. That was the main goal because their next step is going to that Open Day where they will be sitting with a thousand strangers and somehow they have to stand out from the crowd. The very first class taught us greatly about time management and to be well prepared before the class starts. All the mistakes I as a teacher made in the first class, I corrected in the following ones and I am happy to say a few of our students are now working for Emirates Airlines.