Early days of a TEFL teacher
Posted by Alison Parker - 18:45 on 14 March 2009
I am often asked how my TEFL career started. I confess it was completely by accident. I was living in Vienna with my partner who had been posted on a 3 year work placement. At that time, my knowledge of German was non-existent, so work opportunities in my existing career were thin on the ground. Then, one day, during one of my many window shopping expeditions around the city centre, I noticed a Berlitz Kids Language School sign above a door. Not knowing anything about the company, except that they wrote travel guide books, I went in. The company was incredibly welcoming and removed all anxiety I had within moments of walking through their door. I have never looked back. Being a native English speaker was all that was required to teach in the German kindergartens. I was given a 3-day in-house training course, one week to shadow another colleague and all the resource materials I could possibly want. It was an excellent introductory experience. In fact, I taught for two years without any formal training in TEFL.
Once back in the UK, I realised that I had been bitten by the TEFL bug! I immediately signed up for a TEFL course, to equip me for teaching general English to adults in the EFL classroom, and on completion I started searching for jobs on TEFL.com. One week later, I was on a plane to Germany. Feeling apprehensive, and to be honest slightly terrified, I stepped off the train at Karlsruhe train station. I needn’t have worried. The private language school made the transition painless. I was met at the station, taken to my provided accommodation, and collected in the morning to start my induction week. The accommodation was a ‘homestay’, so I lived in with a family and I would recommend that to anyone on first arrival in a foreign country. I still keep in touch with the family today. During my induction week, I was given training on lesson planning, grammar and the opportunity to observe several lessons by colleagues. The rapport in the prep room I will never forget. I had never laughed and enjoyed being at work so much before! We became one big happy family, mixing outside of work as well as in.
There was just one hitch. On my second day, I was given the fright of my life! One of the teachers was sick. There was no one else available to take the class at such short notice. So, I then heard the dreaded words, “Would you mind just taking this one class?” Me, you have got to be kidding, I thought. I felt the adrenaline dump hit my stomach. “Just talk, it will be fine”, I was told. In fact, it was. They were an advanced class who really just wanted to know about me. The 90 minutes flew by and I really enjoyed it. I think they did too. I even found myself looking forward to my next lesson. I knew then everything was going to be ok, and it was throughout my stay.
Alison Parker
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“Very relaxed, enjoyable, great tutor, learned more than I thought I would. It covered most topics I was worried about.” Fraser Duff, Builder, Stenhousemuir