Keep calm and pretend it's on the lesson plan
I'm a teacher.
That is, for want of a better word, terrifying - or at least slightly mollifying. Those that we see during our schooldays and beyond, if we undertake HE. I am, partly, one of them (and partly not), and yet I don't feel like it. It's the thing I've done, most consistently, following university (and by far the thing I've enjoyed the most) and I still don't feel like I'm part of the world of education, probably by virtue of the fact that I do EFL.
There are things within the EFL world that either don't exist in other teaching disciplines (or maybe there are; I'm not privy to them so I've no idea). We all seem to know one another, or at least have a vague recollection of the school or area or interview at which we met - there's a kind of collective misery that unites us as we battle consistently for the jobs which don't really seem to exist, cover classes for very little money, share bootlegged resources that we've never paid for or accept a job for £7.20/hr because why should we get paid anything more than the minimum wage?
We suffer indignities while answering questions about things like IELTS and CEFR levels and then bitch about our crap jobs to other teachers who work in primary and secondary and HE and get paid more (but realistically do more work). We plan, prepare and assess and fill out paperwork. We sit in the ICT suite next to the girl in our class who's filling out her UCAS form and desperately wants to be a nurse. We do all that, and then there's the crossovers - we work with other English teachers, those in KS2 and 3 and 4 and FE and HE, and they share their stories too.
And maybe we teach GCSE English whether we are qualified to do so or not. And maybe we teach Functional Skills whether we are aware of what that is or not. And maybe we teach ICT or healthcare or English for Academic Purposes or Life in the UK. Because that's what you do when you work in EFL - you improvise. Wildly. And stutter and trip over your questions and you get the answers wrong and swear at the board pens which don't work and turn up late in the mornings and blame the bus and scream in pain as your IBS-ridden stomach turns itself inside out when you're meant to be teaching.
And you survive.
Because that is what being a teacher is. Survival.
And then, on occasion, you have a sudden and unexpected rush of clarity. Today I caught myself teaching in the middle of a lesson and I stopped, for the tiniest of moments, to take it all in. Here I am, being responsible, being the font of all knowledge. The adults in front of me - half of whom are older than me - are hanging on my every word, relying on me to impart all the wisdom in my brain, and yet I withstand this without a second thought. I should be scared, shaking from head to toe, walking in each day fearing the judgement and the eyes of staff, students and all others... and yet I'm not.
I'm calm and knowledgeable and humorous and all the things that I know I'm not.
And yet I still don't know what I'm meant to feel. I don't even know what I am. I'm called things like "English Teacher" and "EFL Teacher" and "ESOL Lecturer" and "ADoS" and "Senior Teacher" and a whole host of other things that don't have the word "Assistant" in the title. Logic screams that I'm not ready for that radically senior sort of position, but reality tells me that it isn't really that senior. It's just billed that way.
And I open my mouth and I breathe and I teach and that's what I do, and it's what I've always done, told people things whether they're interested or not, and I'm good at it and I know exactly what to do. And if I get stuck I just freestyle, and I know how to do that too.
And I love every second of it.
I love my terrifying, exhausting, badly-paid, soul-crushing, competitive job.
Lord knows why.
That is, for want of a better word, terrifying - or at least slightly mollifying. Those that we see during our schooldays and beyond, if we undertake HE. I am, partly, one of them (and partly not), and yet I don't feel like it. It's the thing I've done, most consistently, following university (and by far the thing I've enjoyed the most) and I still don't feel like I'm part of the world of education, probably by virtue of the fact that I do EFL.
There are things within the EFL world that either don't exist in other teaching disciplines (or maybe there are; I'm not privy to them so I've no idea). We all seem to know one another, or at least have a vague recollection of the school or area or interview at which we met - there's a kind of collective misery that unites us as we battle consistently for the jobs which don't really seem to exist, cover classes for very little money, share bootlegged resources that we've never paid for or accept a job for £7.20/hr because why should we get paid anything more than the minimum wage?
We suffer indignities while answering questions about things like IELTS and CEFR levels and then bitch about our crap jobs to other teachers who work in primary and secondary and HE and get paid more (but realistically do more work). We plan, prepare and assess and fill out paperwork. We sit in the ICT suite next to the girl in our class who's filling out her UCAS form and desperately wants to be a nurse. We do all that, and then there's the crossovers - we work with other English teachers, those in KS2 and 3 and 4 and FE and HE, and they share their stories too.
And maybe we teach GCSE English whether we are qualified to do so or not. And maybe we teach Functional Skills whether we are aware of what that is or not. And maybe we teach ICT or healthcare or English for Academic Purposes or Life in the UK. Because that's what you do when you work in EFL - you improvise. Wildly. And stutter and trip over your questions and you get the answers wrong and swear at the board pens which don't work and turn up late in the mornings and blame the bus and scream in pain as your IBS-ridden stomach turns itself inside out when you're meant to be teaching.
And you survive.
Because that is what being a teacher is. Survival.
And then, on occasion, you have a sudden and unexpected rush of clarity. Today I caught myself teaching in the middle of a lesson and I stopped, for the tiniest of moments, to take it all in. Here I am, being responsible, being the font of all knowledge. The adults in front of me - half of whom are older than me - are hanging on my every word, relying on me to impart all the wisdom in my brain, and yet I withstand this without a second thought. I should be scared, shaking from head to toe, walking in each day fearing the judgement and the eyes of staff, students and all others... and yet I'm not.
I'm calm and knowledgeable and humorous and all the things that I know I'm not.
And yet I still don't know what I'm meant to feel. I don't even know what I am. I'm called things like "English Teacher" and "EFL Teacher" and "ESOL Lecturer" and "ADoS" and "Senior Teacher" and a whole host of other things that don't have the word "Assistant" in the title. Logic screams that I'm not ready for that radically senior sort of position, but reality tells me that it isn't really that senior. It's just billed that way.
And I open my mouth and I breathe and I teach and that's what I do, and it's what I've always done, told people things whether they're interested or not, and I'm good at it and I know exactly what to do. And if I get stuck I just freestyle, and I know how to do that too.
And I love every second of it.
I love my terrifying, exhausting, badly-paid, soul-crushing, competitive job.
Lord knows why.