Confessions of a TEFL Teacher

Those of you attracted to the glamour and pizzazz of modern-day English teaching in Madrid, let me tell you, it’s not the constant cocktail-partying, jet-setting lifestyle you may have thought. It can be pretty tough, and sometimes unrewarding, but hopefully there’s enough in it to keep you getting up in the morning…

Early, early morning: 10:00 – 12:00.

That’s not so early,” some of you might say, but I disagree, and for the purposes of this article let’s all agree to agree with me. Why, if I don’t like getting up before noon, do I work for Idiomas Ace? Well, each school is a little different and you choose the one that suits you most. I can accept the horrifically early starting time because of the interesting students, the relaxed working atmosphere and the glorious lack of bureaucracy.

Your ideal first class should involve a gorgeous member of the opposite sex who loves English and studying, who finds you personally inspiring and who has a good enough level for you to flirt harmlessly with. That would make getting up easy and the trip to work an exercise in delicious anticipation. Instead I get pre-intermediate.

Every teacher has his strengths and weaknesses. Some like low-level students and some like high-level students. I’m definitely in the latter category. Getting up is hard.

The problem is that what with this being Spain, most adults below a certain age have already undergone a decade of English lessons at school. Now, the deplorable state of English teaching in Spanish state schools aside, if they can go through that and still have next to no grip on the language, they’re obviously not naturally drawn to language learning, making my job a whole lot harder.

I think it’s partly my fault. I’m a little aggressive at times (I will not allow any Spanish in class) and this makes some students panic. I can see it in their eyes: this rapid descent into absolute despair, frozen in the beam of an imaginary pair of headlights, and there’s nothing I can do to bring them back. With each word I say, their impression of a terrified rodent only gets the more realistic, until eventually I succumb and give them a carrot and have a break for five minutes. Higher-level students are less prone to this sort of behaviour.

But at least most students are there on their own volition. Sure, some are only learning English because their work demands it, which is not the best motivation, but they’re paying for their lessons so discipline is rarely a problem. At my previous school I had to teach ten-year-old monsters, which has made what was originally a small, gnawing anxiety about parenthood turn into a great black hole of dread. But I digress.

Back to the Pre-ints. The terrified rodents are dispatched after two hours of awkward conversation and grammar, and then I have a six hour lunch break to… well, eat really slowly I imagine. At Idiomas Ace, my schedule is different from one week to the next, which suits me fine, because routine makes me depressed.

14:00-16:00 Rebelling against sleep deprivation and musings on what it takes to be a good teacher.

Some people like to have a nap at this time, but I feel this only leads to my life being reduced to sleep-work-sleep-work punctuated by the inebriation of a typical Madrid weekend. So I decide to use this time productively looking at funny videos on YouTube as I avoid working on an article I should be writing for MAP Magazine. This way I feel like I’m rebelling against the system, which wants me to be a mere work drone in a relentlessly capitalist world, when really all I’m doing is pushing my body to exhaustion. I win!

I might sometimes spare some time to think about what I’m teaching next, or even learn something about a grammar point I wasn’t so sure about. Now grammar is a funny issue – some teachers embrace the technicalities of grammar, and even phonetics, to a geeky degree. Those of you who have decided to embark on this journey of discovery, I suggest you don’t talk about it openly in the teacher’s room because it will result in mockery and disdain from your less-enlightened peers. You have been warned.

But does solid knowledge of the language make you a good teacher? Obviously, other skills must come into play. Presumably you need to be a good communicator, you need to have patience, and you need to be able to empathise with your student. Yeah, right.

The problem with Spain is that, as I mentioned before, the level of English teaching in state-schools is atrocious. So merely being a native speaker makes you an above-average teacher. Schools just want to make money, so as long as you turn up to class, speak good English, and are willing to work for tuppence, you’re a good teacher. It’s a sobering thought. There’s little relation between salary and ability – teaching in Spain isn’t going to fill the coffers. If it’s any comfort, the vast majority of people in Spain don’t earn much money. We’re all in it for the ride.

18:00 – 19:30: Charming FCE student. To fraternise or not to fraternise?

Now for the student I should’ve had in the morning. Is it unethical for teachers to embark on relationships of any kind with the people they teach? I don’t know – but several of my good friends are ex-students of mine. I’ve only once had to teach an ex-girlfriend. Surprisingly, it wasn’t as toe-curlingly horrible as I had imagined.

I suppose the thorny issue of screwing your students boils down to what kind of school you teach at and what kind of students you have. There’s a pretty free-flowing relationship between teachers and teachees at our school, leading some students to call the school Melrose Ace. Hur hur hur.

But the students we get tend only to attend a few months at a time. They’re adult, self-possessed people who are relatively responsible and presumably can make a mature decision. That’s how I like to justify it to myself.

At my previous school the system was very different. It worked on the traditional September to June academic year, and even those students above eighteen were being sent there by their parents. Also, many of them had been attending this school since they were eight. So I can imagine that if one day a parent hears of how a teacher at the school seduced their 22-year-old daughter (let’s not speak about the average Spaniard’s inability to leave the nest) you don’t want to be in the room when they phone your boss.

20:00 – 22:00: Conversation lesson. What do the Spanish want to talk about?

At some point in time it’s entirely likely you’ll be faced with the daunting task of leading a conversation lesson for two hours. There are several different approaches to teaching this kind of lesson. You could simply talk to them for two hours and call it a listening exercise. It’s a good idea to throw in several belittling remarks about their country/sex/religion for good measure, so as to properly communicate your overpowering superiority.

Ideally, you’ll have students who are like wound up little springs, just waiting for an opportunity to rabbit on endlessly about whichever subject you plan to bring up. Unfortunately those are few and far between and tend to learn quickly, eventually leaving you with the unenthusiastic or uncommunicative dregs.

One sure-fire thing to get them going is to suggest that maybe Spanish cooking is nice but not really fantastic. They won’t believe you. It’s quite funny. They insist it’s amazing.

22:00 + Freedom… for now. On alcohol abuse.

The problem with finishing at ten is that, if you’re starting at ten the next day, you feel cheated of an evening. The sensible thing to do at this point is simply to go home, unwind, then go to bed.

Unfortunately
it doesn’t always go that way. Empirical evidence suggests that most, if not all, English teachers are alcoholic. Why could this be? Is it the stress of constantly needing to perform in front of strangers? Is it because we’re all highly energised social beings? Is it because we’re depressed? I don’t know, but many a burgeoning teacher has mentioned the sudden increase of his or her alcohol consumption since beginning this illustrious career.

Every now and then, on a Tuesday or Wednesday evening, a demon in your head will decide to throw caution to the wind. Tomorrow is another day and consequences be damned. Many people will boast/confess to coming into class with a terrible hangover. But everyone agrees – the night before is rarely worth the agony
afterwards.

And so this day in the life of a teacher ends. Is it a career to last a lifetime? Most teachers seem convinced that they’re going to stop teaching any minute. It is a strange, ephemeral world where people come and go and the occasional damned soul remains. Oh the joys of it all!

by Michael Beeson