Your opinions please

[stroudment]

ESL Teachers:

What do you like most and least about teaching ESL?

Stroudment

[Heads Up Eng]

There are a lot of small thinks that I like, as well as small things that I hate. But I assume the big likes/hates are the ones that either keep you in the classroom or have you move on to some other career.

I love working with students and teachers, helping them learn a foreign language or become better teachers respectively. I love researching, trying out new ideas, analyzing the results, and continually improving as a teacher and trainer.

I hate the pay, or at least really wish I could earn more. Although more and more people want to learn English, they don't necessarily understand what makes a good teacher. As such, so many people who want to teach and see the world bring down salaries to some extent. What's more, education rarely pays well in the first place.

Teaching is like any job, though. There are pluses and minuses. Yet it's even more important to keep focused on the pluses. A disaffected or discouraged teacher who just comes in for the paycheck does a real disservice to all the students he/she works with.

That's my two cents, at any rate.

[deanbush]

I hate how so many "teachers" (mostly those with even no qualifications at all or one of those ridiculous British certificates that mean nothing) will work for almost nothing. They are nothing more than volunteers, and their "efforts" to fill a classroom position (not necessarily teach) just bring down the salaries of the qualified who could truly give an organization and individuals a positive return on their investment in paying for their English courses. As the expression goes, "You get what you pay for." I think many students learn the true meaning of that expression fairly quickly from what they tell me.

Thank God I had the sense to earn a Master of Science degree in TESOL but with a specialty in English for Specific Purposes (along with a Bachelor of Science in Business and a Bachelor of Arts in German). I have been teaching Business English and Aviation English for the past ten years and the income on my aviation English full time position has been $69,000 per year with full benefits (health/dental/disability insurance, vacation, compensation time, 401K retirement, and sick pay). I feel extremely fortunate, but everytime I venture out to these forums and listen to the whining and crying, I just realize that English teachers have to be more sensible and logical or stop the whining and crying.

I do my job because I help people to do their jobs far better than they ever could have done them before I worked with them. They earn more money because their companies earn more as a result of their own efforts; therefore, I earn more money.

I hope for the sake of language students and teachers alike will figure the "business" of teaching out one day and stop the madness. At least if you want continue the madness because you think you can't find anything else to do, then stay in the UK where you'll be able to do just that and make nothing for a salary and have terrible benefits.

In any case, I wish everyone the best in their efforts.

[lorw]

What I love most are the kids. They're so fun. I've only been teaching for about 3 1/2 months, and am one of those people who had zero experience before coming here, but I've loved watching how much they've improved in such little time, and even how much my own teaching has improved/developed from nothing.

What I hate is being low man on the totem pole. The foreigner is always believed last - behind parents, students, native teachers, etc, and can get away with the least - I feel like we're held to higher expectations and if something goes wrong, even if it's something with a class we share with the native teacher, we're the one who gets in trouble for it.

[Shelley]

I absolutely love teaching children, seeing them enjoying learning and experiencing a connection with them. A highlight for me each term is doing a show in front of the school and parents where the kids get to show off what they have learned. I always feel highly chuffed and delighted at the results.

What I don't like are naughty kids, especially BOYS. They can be hard work and I wish we could just kick 'em out of class!

Shelley
http://www.teachingenglishgames.com
For free classroom games, preschool games, stories, role plays and skits and songs.

[Syl]

I love teaching. Period.

I love the feeling of giving something to someone, either a kid or an adult, and this "something" will help them in their careers or whatever they do. In my humble opinion an English teacher isn't just a teacher that teaches a language. An English teacher is also an educator, contributing and showing his students the values with which they will become better persons.

A teacher can't sit at the top of a podium and look down at his students. A teacher must look at his pupils "eye level", and never be the source of knowledge. His role is to give tools, teach them, and show the way, and the students will become independent learners.

When these goals are attained, then I can say that what I love most is teaching.

Naughty kids are a challenge, and I like that!

"Teaching is like any job, though. There are pluses and minuses. Yet it's even more important to keep focused on the pluses. A disaffected or discouraged teacher who just comes in for the paycheck does a real disservice to all the students he/she works with."

I must disagree, Heads Up Eng. Teaching isn't like any job. Sure, we all need some income, but the great payment, for example, is watching a kid finding out he can read: look at his shining eyes!:)

Syl