Oh it’s a glamorous life teaching English
on youtube: “you look 100 indian, how did you lose your indian accent?” “English
people don't look like you illegal.” “a piece of paper doesn't make you British.”
Actually it does it's called a passport. As you can see now I am showered with praise from
devoted fans daily but it hasn't always been like that I've been teaching English for a long time
mostly face-to-face and today I thought I'd share with you some of my experiences both good and
bad of teaching English as a foreign language teaching English abroad if you're thinking of
doing yourself then this might help if you're looking for a reason not to do it then this
might help too. If you're learning English then I hope that this will be interesting to see
what it's like from the teacher's perspective. If you're in none of those categories I hope
you'll find this video interesting anyway. I look at the good, the bad and the ugly and give you
my top five teaching tips so stay tuned for that. Where shall we start? Yeah let's start at
the beginning. let's go back, back in time a callow youth only recently graduated from
university with a burning desire to see the world and have interesting experiences. You know
these days there are a lot more opportunities for middle-class Brits to take gap years
and do thrilling stuff to swim with dolphins and paddle through the Amazon in
a canoe and go scuba diving on the great barrier reef. When I finished university I hadn't
done any of those things, nothing like it because I was that was the technical word for it? oh
it's poor. Yes so I decided to work for a couple of years and earn loads of money and fly off
somewhere far far away and do something amazing so I got a temp job in London and then another
and another. The only jobs I could get were filing boring jobs as clerks and warehouse
work. You're the new guy? - yes my name's Gideon I've got three A-levels and a second-class
honours degree at your service - yeah whatever take these files and put them in the filing
cabinet and when you finish with them I've got some envelopes for you tor stuff and if you
speak to anyone about my permission you're fired so now piss off. - I was young and rebellious with
a belly full of fire and I wanted to change the world but I soon realized that I wasn't going to
achieve that by stuffing insurance brochures into envelopes and not only did I hate the jobs the
money didn't exactly roll in either. I was hardly breaking even and almost two years had passed and
I was doing jobs I hated and I still had no money. I scratched my head and wondered where did
it go? - The money, that is, not my head. Then the best thing ever happened to me, something
that would change my life forever. I was fired. How I got fired as a filing clerk I'm not sure
maybe they they didn't like me, I didn't fit in, I didn't know the alphabet perhaps, whatever but
the very next day the temp agency called me and they offered me another job in a call center of a
car breakdown service there was lots of overtime and if I worked nights I would get paid double. So
I worked six or seven days a week from 7 p.m to 7 00 a.m and if your car broke down on a B road
in Gloucestershire at 3am on a Tuesday morning I was the guy that picked up the phone and sent
help. Within a few months I had accumulated enough money to make my move. I couldn't take it anymore.
I had to get out of there but where and to do what. I had a friend in Italy who was teaching
English he got a job fairly easily so why not me? I thought I'd try somewhere different. Why not
Spain? I've always wanted to learn Spanish so with about £700 in my pocket and the dubious knowledge
of the alphabet I took a one-way flight to Madrid. I knew nobody there I had no accommodation
I didn't speak any Spanish and I had no experience of teaching English all I had was just a photocopy
of the Spanish yellow pages the paginas amarillas on the page for language schools in Madrid
this was, by the way, a long time ago before the internet I didn't even have any
credit cards so if I ran out of money there was no way to get back. Was I crazy?
It was looking back a reckless decision but one I felt I had to make. Fortunately
it turned out easier than I had anticipated that time around 1990 there was a massive shortage
of English teachers in Madrid the whole city was learning English the life of a madrilleño
or a madrileña at that time was go to work go to the English lesson go to the barn until
around 4am and repeat. So I went around the language schools handing in my CV and, as luck
would have it, the very first English language academy I went into offered me an interview. Not
having the requisite skills I was pretty nervous but I needn't have been. They had set
the bar pretty low, extremely low. So low that even an asthmatic ant on crutches could, no
doubt, step over it with ease. I was expecting difficult questions about grammar about teaching
but none of that. The Director of Studies, a well-spoken Englishman of about 40 years old in
a clumsy fitting suit didn't even glance at my cv instead he looked me up and down and asked
“what is your star sign?” I was surprised by the question but I told him “I'm cancer” and he said
“oh that's great cancers do really well at this not-to-be-mentioned-language-school-for-legal-reasons.
You're in.” My hard-earned degree in history and sociology from a prestigious red-brick
university had counted for nothing. No it was rather the alignment of the planets on the day
of my birth that carried greater weight with this guy. Superstitious mumbo-jumbo it might be but it
got me the job and who was I to complain? I had done it. At the time there was an acute shortage
of professionally trained, experienced English teachers so they did the next best thing and
employed untrained, unprofessional teachers with no experience. It seemed like as long as you could
successfully read the ingredients on a pickle jar you were “in” I got a job as an English teacher
but I was wholly unprepared to lead a classroom in fact let me tell you the sum of my
knowledge of English grammar at that time was: a noun is a thing, a verb is a doing
word and an adjective describes a thing. In the UK we don't learn grammar at school.
We learn English and reading and literature and writing but not grammar which I
think is a pity because the ability to understand and analyze words and sentences and
paragraphs is enlightening. It helps when you write your own language and is so useful when
learning a foreign language. With the Spanish it's the complete opposite. a Spaniard learns
school how to dissect any sentence into its semantic elements the way that a lab technician
dissects a rat walking to the classroom for the first time I was at a distinct disadvantage and
one, I might say, that caused many moments of stress and embarrassment my students were finely
tuned grammar veterans and they bombarded me with questions. Questions that I was wholly unequipped
to answer. It was like going into a battle against the modern army with just a catapult
ant and a pair of sneakers. “Teacher teacher, what is the difference between ill and sick?”
“OK yeah so so ill it's like you know I'm ill and sick it's like you know when you're sick sick
and you're like oh I feel sick it's like ooh I'm sick you know.” “que dice?” It was then that from
another teacher I got the best piece of advice that I have ever received advice that I still
use to this day and advice that I'm passing on to you and anybody starting out their
teaching career. Trust me it's gold. “Teacher, what is the difference between
the past simple and the present perfect?” “Good question, we're a bit busy right now so
I'll get back to you next time about that with an explanation.” Can you tell me
now?” “Who's the teacher?” “you are.” “As I said we're busy now but I'll come back
to you next time with a clear explanation” OK I'll get back to you on that brilliant never
fails then find the answer after the class do your research and next time when you come to the class
you sound super knowledgeable I feel sorry for the poor students they paid their hard-earned money
for English lessons so that they could get a good job or see the world but they end up being taught
not by experts but by idiots straight off the boat from England. The sad thing is that
there were lots of excellent non-native teachers of English who could have done the job
far far better than me but the schools rarely gave them the chance and the reason they didn't is
that the students insisted on having - or most of the students - insisted on having native English
teachers even though it's certainly no guarantee of excellence. Despite my lack of skills myself
and my colleagues stuck by our task and tried to improve as teachers .However, you would
have thought that the language school would have provided some support well just like in every
field there are good and bad players school by the way had a dubious teaching method all of their own
it was based around questions let me demonstrate is this a pen? Yes it is a pen? Where is the pen? The
pen is on the table. Is this a banana? No it’s not a banana it is a pen. This is a banana
and etc etc and while this method might work for complete beginners it's a struggle even at
lower intermediate level when students want to express themselves and have more meaningful
conversations than just resolving the confusion about the existence and whereabouts of writing
implements. What's worse was that even though the teachers wanted to present more interesting
material in the class they were restricted from doing so by the school and the school had bugs
believe it or not yes that's right there were listening devices in each classroom and they would
secretly listen in to check that the teachers were following their not-very-good methods. We were
paid low salaries basically I swapped being poor in london to being poor in Madrid meanwhile
my friends from university were getting good salaries at prestigious companies back in london
though I freely admit that I had consciously chosen to distinguish myself from other men
through experiences and not through wealth So let's look at money for a moment. Can you get
rich teaching English? In a lot of west European countries you'll get a basic salary from a
language school which just about covers the cost of living in the country where you
are but if you want to get better bucks you should look for private lessons and better
still if you get a company that selects you for their in-house English teaching you can
start to do pretty well. The way to do this is generally networking and getting to know
your students who might work for a company and have good contacts and if you have your
own website these days of course that'll help and there are of course big differences in Europe
and if you have more information then yeah I welcome your comments. In some parts of Asia the
salaries might be higher relative to the cost of living and in some countries such as South Korea
and sometimes China the accommodation and even the flights might be included in the package
which will save you a lot of money. However, I've never taught in Asia so, once again,
I rely on you to share your stories. Some parts of the middle east can be quite lucrative. I had a
friend who worked in Saudi Arabia for a couple of years and he did extremely well. His salary
was high, it was tax-free, his accommodation was provided and he had no social life. So he made
money but at a cost an important point to bear in mind is that if you're working in a city and
the hourly rate seems quite good this could be considerably diminished by travel time if you've
got a one-hour class and it takes you 45 minutes each way on public transportation then it's
not quite as good not quite as lucrative as you thought. So basically, there are two types of
English teacher; those who are doing it for a year or two to see the world get some experience
and those who make it a career. Certainly, when I lived in Spain I was in the first of
those categories and it was a great experience everything I'd wanted to discover new culture
to have a great social life and to learn a new language and Madrid is a beautiful vibrant city
and I still like to visit whenever I get the chance. I spent two years in Madrid and by the
time I left I was able to give a good lesson and had a good understanding of how English works. You
learn things by doing it and I thought my days of teaching English were over. I went back to
London, I studied IT. I worked in computing for more than 10 years and never thought I'd
set foot in a classroom again but never say never. Working in it was great. It can fulfill
all your creative desires and it's well paid so I had nothing to complain about and yet
one day I took some time off between contracts to visit Paris and while I was here I was offered
I.T. work online. I did that for a while and when that came to an end I was already established
in Paris. I looked for other things I could do. I did some voiceover work and I gave a few
English lessons and some more and some more and some more. The advantage of coming back to a
profession when you're older and more experienced is that you can do things on your own terms. If I
was to teach again I was going to do it my own way no more “is this a pen?” no more
“Marie is in the kitchen?” no more drilling and filling-in-the-gap exercises “read
this paragraph and when you see a present perfect underline it with a straight line and if you see
a past simple underline it with a wavy line.” No, I was finished with all that stuff. I
would teach the way that I would want to learn a language if I were a student or I would
die trying. Language is about communication and for me that meant basing the lessons around
conversation and interesting topics explaining grammar but in the context of the conversation we
were having. The question was, were there enough English learners in Paris who shared my sentiments
about language learning. Fortunately there were, well, there are because I'm still here. I run a
language school called LetThemTalk in Paris. If you're thinking of teaching abroad let me give
you my thoughts and perhaps share some tips first of all the positives: You'll discover new
cultures, you'll learn a new language, you'll learn your own language, you'll make lots of
friends - except perhaps if you get a job teaching Saudi drilling engineers in the desert. It'll
change you as a person. Going in front of a class each day and having to perform each
time and successfully impart knowledge is difficult but if you do it well it will instill
confidence and self-belief. One of the most interesting things about teaching English is the
people you meet. If you work, just for example, in the pharmaceutical industry then the people
you meet daily are the same sort of people, those who have chosen to work in pharmaceuticals
but teaching English is different because everybody wants, or needs, to learn English. You
meet rich and poor students and retired people, those who need English for their work and
those who just want to learn the international language. Of course if you're teaching drilling
engineers in the Saudi desert that's not the case but on the whole you meet a fascinating array
of people in the classroom. The negatives: All jobs have their downsides and language
teaching is no different. There are bad employers who pay bad salaries and there are bad conditions
and this is a particular hazard when you're starting out. Another thing is it can be
stressful and I confess that for me going into a classroom to teach grammar when I didn't know
grammar was one of the most stressful things in my life. So I do advise you to do a TEFL course
or at least get the basics before you go. Another thing is you may work unsociable hours. Lessons
are often scheduled before the working day and after it and sometimes at lunch time so you
can have your first lesson at 8am and finish at 10pm with big gaps in the middle. Another downside
is the traveling especially if you're living in a big city you can spend a lot of time getting from
one class to the next and it's not always fun taking smelly overcrowded metro trains
several times a day and if you've got that big gap during the day and it's not worth going
home you can spend hours just hanging around cafes and killing time. Finally let me give
you a few tips about teaching. By the way in my career I have mostly taught adults and these
tips reflect that but the principles are the same you can just perhaps adapt them if you're teaching
children. Conduct the lessons only in English. If you know the language of the country that's great
but don't use it in the classroom. Speaking only in English forces the students to concentrate
to get used to hearing English around them all the time and just the reflex of speaking English
amongst themselves of course occasionally a word can escape especially a noun sometimes it's easier
to say oh what's an apple a manzana rather than spending several minutes trying to describe
an apple but these should be very rare exceptions. Don't speak too much. The teacher
is the boss of the class but sometimes this can go to your head. You may think that the students
are there to listen to you explain your worldview but they're not. You may wish to burble on about
fish and chips and marmite and your opinions on Brexit but they're not really interested they
are there to practise their English. If you're speaking more than 30% of the time it's too
much. How do you do this? So for example, if a student asks a question like what's the
difference between hello and goodbye instead of answering the question yourself, get another
student to answer it. Of course you can clarify it if they've made a mistake. and it’s not the
same if you've got huge classrooms of 42 students then it's going to be more difficult. Don't use
books or handouts too much or if possible not at all. When I started I used to prepare for ages. I
used props, tapes, photocopies, pictures, songs, videos and this is great especially when you're
starting but don't overdo it. In the end there is nothing better than a great conversation. Keep
it simple let the students express themselves and don't be a control freak let the conversation
flow but make sure nobody dominates there are students who just talk a lot and your job is to
manage the lesson so that everyone, even the shy ones and those with a low level of English, get a
chance so if you see somebody sitting quietly for too long stop and ask that person some questions.
Discipline: following on from my last point, you are the boss, you are there to teach but
you must control the class too don't allow certain students to dominate the conversation.
If someone is talking for too long, hit the table and say let me just get some other people
involved. Be respectful but firm in a small way or sometimes in a big way as an English teacher you
are making a positive difference in people's lives you are helping them become the person they want
to be wherever you are whatever your job you want meaningful work you want to feel that you
are making a contribution teaching English ticks those boxes. Now I started off this video
with a few negative comments but I admit I was being a little disingenuous. It's good to start a
video with conflict and to end on a positive note and here it is: Those are exceptions. The vast
majority of feedback I get online and face to face is positive and so it will be for you too
and that's what makes it all worthwhile that's why we do it. That's why we trudge across town
early on Wednesday morning, that's why we spend our sunday evenings preparing our lesson we do
it for you because we love connecting with people and if you're thinking of teaching I'll just say
that you'll be helping the world to communicate and what could be more worthy than that. We'd love
to hear from you if you're a teacher. If you've taught abroad or you're a non-native teacher
of English leave your comments below. If you're considering teaching English abroad then leave
your comments below. If you're a student leave your comments below and if you're the bastard who
made me stuff those envelopes all those years ago then leave your name and home address
below. Stay mellow and see you next time.
