The World's Language

I've just finished my first week as a language teacher (as opposed to a schoolteacher) today, and I have to say it's a pretty good experience. At least, it's been refreshing and fun so far. I get the fun of teaching, presenting, guiding activities, meeting people who want to educate themselves and exchange ideas, without the pains of an institution. Bells ringing every hour, disillusioned inmates, desperately glaring at the clock in the hope of a time warp, angry parents with enormous, fluorescent pink-tinted glasses, and endless meetings about achievement, assessment, curriculum, bla bla bla.

So I'm teaching The World's Language, as the great Bill Bryson (yeah, great, sure) calls it. I'm a sellout, taking money from a private institution to correct the inadequacies of public systems. After 12 to 15 years of schooling in English, my students turn up without a word and need to study English pretty much from scratch. And actually, it's really satisfying. They want to do something with their lives, and need English to achieve it. The odd scrounger is just there because the company has forced him, but even he will pull his socks up when it's important. So for the time being - even though business environments are completely not me and I still struggle to remember to shave every day and wear an ironed shirt rather than a patched cardigan and corduroys - I've opted out of the institutional cynicism of schools. It's quite a refreshing change.

I know of a secondary school teacher who invented a game called 'Bulls**t Bingo'. Several teachers had cards with terms like 'assessment', 'child-centred learning', 'community', 'objectives' and 'moving forward' written in sequence on a battleship grid, grouped like submarines. When the headmaster/director gave a speech or held a meeting for teachers, you could tick off words, and if a 'submarine' of words was hit, you could cough out "Bulls**t!" discretely enough to not be noticed by the speaker, but loud enough to be heard by other players, in order to gain points. Of course in my school, we were educated, well-meaning professionals, fully involved in the director's agenda, so we never finished a game. (coughs uncomfortably)

This sort of game isn't really needed in a language school. In fact, if your boss is really breathing down your neck or the place is a god-awful mess, you can simply look for work elsewhere, or even set yourself up independently, given the contacts. For the most part, they're pretty small and well-run, although there is some unnecessary cafuffle, like in every school. I like the idea of getting to work, doing my job, and leaving it behind at the end of the day, though. A major perk, in comparison with being a schoolteacher, day and night, whether you like it or not. Whatever anyone says, schoolteachers are in it for good. It changes the way you pee and the taste of your child-centred, objectives-driven tofu meal; knowing that at any time, you can be called upon or recognized as The Teacher. The guide-by-the-side everyone loves to hate, mock and criticise, and noone wants to be.

But I want to go back to it, before long. The masochists among you, reading this blog, know what I'm talking about. I appreciate a change, I'm working in a language school and getting a lot out of it, but the teacher's itch is at me; a part of my educational mong wants to be standing in front of bored and disillusioned teenagers and moaning in the faculty lounge, waiting for the bell. I miss bad spelling, fart-smelling classes of edgy kids, eager for attention, irritable, and repeated questions about colours of pens.

To compensate, I'm thinking of doing some work in schools, but via outside organisations. I'm looking to work for a charity which raises money for leukemia patients, by sponsoring runs and the like. I might go into schools and pester parents, kids and teachers to raise money for this charity, asking them to sponsor me to train up for a marathon. I might do some storytelling in local libraries or primary schools, using hats to distinguish characters in French and English. Or I might just go back to a plain old classroom. Who knows.