Occasionally Wanda, my fellow 2go-Box escapee, will send me links to jobs on CareerBuilder.com. From there I will typically start browsing all the listings just to see what's there.
Today I happened upon a link that said "teacher", and that made me think of how Dad said he thought I wanted to be a teacher. (I'm not sure where he got that idea.) Then I thought about teaching ESL. But that brought back a bevy of unhappy feelings from my last experience concerning TESL.
An acquaintance had suggested I volunteer with a local church that offered ESL classes. I thought about it for awhile, and finally contacted the person in charge of the program. She was very friendly and helpful, or so I thought, but I was still feeling timid, as I had no real classroom experience. So rather than committing to anything, I suggested that I stop by sometime and see how the classes were run. She seemed to agree with this, stating that classes had already begun for that semester anyway. I didn't go to that week's class, and by the next week I had decided that since classes had already started, I probably shouldn't try to stick my nose in, and instead try for the following semester. I emailed her to tell her so, and she wrote back, "I had to turn students away last week. There was no teacher for them because you weren't there."
To my knowledge, I had never given her the impression that I was going to be there. I had worked to give her the impression that I didn't know what I was doing, that I was willing to help but that I didn't have any experience, that I wanted to at least observe classes before running one of my own. But apparently what I was saying did not get through to her. Apparently my interest was taken as an offering of services, and when I didn't "follow through", I was then ripe for the guilt trip of a lifetime.
Ever since then, I haven't been able to think cheerfully about teaching English as a second language. The whole experience soured me on it. It really shouldn't. I need to get past it.
But I really can't believe I was treated like that.
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4 comments:
Well, no offense but when its a local chruch (any denomination, as long as its a chruch) observing and spending time is like you committed yourself for life teaching there. I've had similar experience with volinteering time with chruches (mine happened to be Catholic, when I was Catholic) and trying to leave was a guilt trip of a lifetime. So I could see why you'd feel that way. But not everyone is like that. Try visiting a local school and ask if you could observe/shadow an ESL teacher, since you're thinking about this field or something to that effect. That way you can see how things are going without much commitment to doing something.
-Hyper_neko
Well, I had never observed or spent time there. I never even went to the school! All I did was talk to the lady a couple times by phone and email. :>
But yeah, a normal school would probably be a better option.
If you look into the Occupational Outlook Handbook of the U.S. Bureau of Labor, you will see that this job is not bad for pay and easy enough to get certified in. You'd be well worth the money with your skills. :)
I actually have a "Certificate in Applied Linguistics for Teaching English as a Second Language", because as an undergraduate I took essentially the same courses that the TESL Masters candidates were taking. (This is why my prof was like, "If you're going to grad school for TESL, don't go to UK, because you have already taken everything!" I wasn't planning on doing that, and still am not, but I did think that was funny.)
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