Since I started teaching myself I’ve found myself thinking more and more often about what an obnoxious bunch of little horrors me and my classmates were. There was one teacher in particular whose life we probably made unbearable. He was a young bloke – I would imagine we were his first teaching job – and he used to turn up in designer suits and driving an open top sports car. He seemed to think that because he wasn’t a lot older than us that we would all get on like mates and he’d have no trouble from us. How wrong he was. By the end of that year, there wasn’t one of those fancy designer suits that wasn’t torn or stained with some mystery substance and one of the really rough lads from fifth year got suspended for stealing his fancy car and leaving it dumped in a ditch. God knows why I wanted to go into teaching after that little performance!

I thought about that young teacher the other day when I was meeting my new class of young ex-offenders. I thought it would be OK because they all wanted to be there, and teaching anyone who has turned up voluntarily is much easier than teaching those who have been forced to come along. Unfortunately, I didn’t find out until the hellish hour was over that the English lessons were part of their parole conditions and that if they didn’t show up they’d be returned to the overcrowded and filthy institution that they’d only just been released from. When I heard that, the previous hour all started to make sense.

I’ll try a different tack next time, but I suspect those kids will take one look at my “No More Mr Nice Guy” act and see right through me. At least I don’t drive a convertible!

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The benefits far outweigh any negative points

Those first few weeks however, bring their own unique challenges. I’d imagine they’re similar to those you’d face if you moved from say, Exeter to Glasgow to follow a teaching job. The exhaustion of a new job and a big move, compounded in this case by jet lag, and often with home sickness can make any minor problems seem major.

Obviously within a week or so when you’re in the swing of things this will all seem far behind you. But for those first few days there are a few things I’d recommend to help with any lonely or home sick feelings.

I always make sure I take a few things with me that might seem useless, and maybe a bit like extra baggage, but I’ve found they really help in that first week:

• Photos of family and friends to put on the wall or just have around. I usually take a really small soft cover photo album with me so that they all stay together.
• Two, or three, or four (!) good books. I usually include one old favourite from childhood (Paddington, in my case) to read in times of insomnia. These usually have the advantage of being very thin books, too. If you have a Kindle then of course you’re sorted.
• If books aren’t your thing, then make sure you have a few DVD’s in a soft case.
• A phone card to use until you get a local mobile.
• A dongle for your laptop.
• Something to help you while away any long evenings or afternoons before you start making friends. I’m not suggesting you start googling www.chesssets.co.uk for anything quite so bulky, but a set of cards or a sketch book will help.
• They may not allow it where you’re staying, but I always take my favourite incense with me so that my room smells like mine from the start. If I can’t burn it then I can just put the packet into a drawer or my bag and it makes my clothes smell lovely and familiar.

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Teaching abroad still continues to humble me. The kids and adults I’ve worked with are both dedicated and industrious. Even the ones who struggle with the basics work hard and this determination is reflected throughout every class I teach. I’ve received a lot of questions in the past week regarding the riots that happened in the UK. Needless to say I was just as shocked as my pupils have been with everything. It still seems hard to imagine that London, Birmingham, Manchester and many other major cities became little more then thieves'playgrounds.

I think perhaps the worst thing about the riots was seeing the strain the emergency services were clearly under. Not for the first time, I felt deeply sympathetic toward all the police officers out on the streets. They looked frightened, undermanned and lacking in any significant riot gear. Being attacked by mindless thugs is probably scary at the best of times, but when you’re being attacked by thousands of the swine it must be terrifying. My students kept asking me why Britain didn’t have more police on the streets that night. To me the answer seems simple enough – the police never expected that kind of trouble.

The other service that deserves a lot of credit but rarely receives anything but criticism was the NHS. With all the injuries and several deaths, the hospitals must have been inundated with casualties. I even read that one poor chap in Ealing lost his life after he was attacked trying to put out a fire and two police officers are still lying in hospital with severe injuries following a hit and run incident by some of the looters. Doctors and nurses get a lot of flak considering their over worked and under paid, yet they strive on anyway.

My students like many people from around the world are still in slight awe of our national health service. It may have its problems and NHS nurse jobs may still be challenging to fill, but it is one of the most envied services the world over. I’ve been teaching my kids the history of how the service was first begun after the Second World War and how it has faced problems and challenges greater then the ones it faces now. They are right to be envious of the service and we are wrong to be so lacking in respect for it.

Now more then ever the emergency services need people to go and work for them. Several of my pupils who are qualified nurses and doctors have already stated a desire to go and study and work within the NHS when their English has got to the required level of fluency. This is what has made me so humble teaching abroad. The UK is the envy of many nations in Europe and beyond, yet we seem so intent on focusing on the negatives that we fail to appreciate the positives. I am proud of my country and I am exceedingly in awe of how the police and the NHS conducted themselves during the recent riots. There aren’t many emergency service personnel in the world who can conduct themselves in such a patient and protective manner.

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I was teaching a class the other day we were focusing on vocabulary and the lexical group of clothes. When we started talking about shoes, it occurred to me that we have literally hundreds of words for shoes even just within British English but including international versions of English there could be thousands. Here I am going to list some of them in groups determined by usage. Perhaps these lists can be used for some kind of vocabulary game in class, I will make some suggestions for this after the lists. You and your students will probably be able to add more to the lists..

Sports

Running shoes, trainers, plimsolls, football boots, sneakers, golf shoes, pumps, spikes.

Formal

Dress shoes, high heals, loafers, moccasins, T-strap shoes.

Work

Wellington Boots, Boots, steal toe capped boots/shoes,

Relaxing

Flip Flops, thongs, slippers, crocs,

Unusual

Cowboy-boots, clogs, clown shoes, tap shoes.

You could get pictures of these shoes and then get the students to match the pictures to the names. If you had 2 sets of pictures and words it could be done competitively in groups. Give them a few minutes to match them up and then see which group got the most right.

Or you could look at the shoes that people in the class are wearing and identify them. I like this because it make some of the vocabulary relevant to them personally which gives them a better chance of being able to recall the new words later. An extension of this could be to ask students which one of the shoes from the list they own. Again this gets students thinking about the meaning of the words and helps to remember.

There are so many fun things you could do that you could probably make a whole class just on shoes, which might be useful if you ever get ahead of your syllabus.

Well I hope this is helpful.

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Teaching is not just profession for me but also my passion, which is why I never looked for gp doctor jobs. As a student I had noticed that there are some teachers who are easily understood and then there are others who could repeat a concept as many times as they want, but understanding could still remain a challenge. Probably this is when I thought of becoming like one of those who could be easily understood. Well, there surely are some teachers who are not only easily understood but could also make it interesting by adding a bit of humor.

There are many teachers who are more interested in giving a well formulated speech to their class, but this would not work if your students have no clue of what you are talking about. A speech is only needed at a place where the audience already knows the in and out of what you are talking about and would like to know your view. On the other hand a teacher not only has to address the class but also has to make sure that that the concept is understood by each of her students.

For example it’s very easy to say 20 divided by 5 is four in the class of 8^th graders and move on, but if you say the same to the second graders, you will surely get some confused faces and some not interested students. This also makes it highly important to understand the standard of your students in terms of knowledge, when you have to select which topic to stress on and which one to simply read on. If you don’t stress on the ones that needs to be understood then you are a difficult teacher and if you stress on the ones that are simple for your class then you are a dumb teacher who is simply passing time.

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It is amazing to think that while my friends who I studied with are comfortable enough to look for horse insurance, I am trying to master Spanish and Mandarin Chinese in preparation for my next move. Teaching overseas has provided so many delights, and for my next adventure, I would like to head to either Asia or Latin America. It is such a huge choice and the cultures are so incredibly different. I know in order to make this decision I need to think about getting to grips with another language. I am a big fan of the immersion technique, where you learn in the target language and build up a vocabulary with either your teacher or a dictionary. You build up your knowledge by using the language. Your teacher will mime something while using the phrase that you are supposed to be learning. Such as ’wo yau e bay cafe'(that is Mandarin for I want a cup of coffee) and you are supposed to give your teacher the cup of coffee to which she says ’shay shay'and you say ’boo ke qi’. You absolutely have to forgive me the spelling. Mandarin uses words as characters so across time there has been different systems for changing the sounds into a Roman alphabet and I can’t remember any of them. That is why 50 years ago the capital of China was Peking and now it is Beijing. The pronunciation is the same but the romanization is different. Its a challenge, but there is so much demand right now for teachers in China that I am forging boldly forward.

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I used to think the cold weather in Glasgow was exaggerated until I got off the plane at the airport from my home country via Amsterdam. Unlike people who took London flights, we had a long stay in Amsterdam airport before flying down to Glasgow. My dark and usually strong skin began to fail me almost immediately. In a bid to save my life, I immediately rushed for the zipper of my back pack and unearthed a thick sweater. I had the sweater on but I figured it was not even snowing yet and above all we were still in September. The thought of the cold and it’s potential to get worse like they say; ran shivers down my spine. In two seconds, I concluded that I was going back home but also immediately knew I was just fooling myself considering the amount I paid for tuition. My course mates quickly got to know about my intolerance for the weather and I found myself at the receiving end of their jokes as well. All this happened before the snow began to fall.

I dreaded winter and when the first snow in Glasgow fell, I refused to be impressed though I took some pictures in it. After the first day of snow, the pictures and videos, I never played in the snow which includes building a snowman. There was no way I was going to put my hands in the ice to build anything. No, not me! I struggled to go to class and hated Glasgow’s weather with a passion. Reflecting on the weather much later on, I became grateful that my earlier arrival in the UK meant that I had enough time to get used to it before winter. I cannot deny that the smile on the faces of the people of Glasgow is warm and so is their friendly attitude but nobody can help with the terrible weather. The best thing I thought; was to get adapted to it and hopefully come next winter; I will build my first snowman.

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One of my closest friends disturbed the solitaire card game I was playing one day to ask me my ideas on what to do as a birthday for her boyfriend who was overseas. Here is what I told her. Hopefully she listened.

Now planning a birthday surprise for long distance boyfriend can be really difficult as the distance apart can be a big challenge. You may not be able to throw a party but you can still make it a memorable one with a well-planned surprise.

You should seriously think about sending a heartfelt letter. It is a good idea even if you exchange SMS or letters regularly. Do not forget to include a gift certificate, a singing card or a perfumed kiss with it. Use your favorite perfume to scent the pages.

You can also think about making a video slide show or a photo album with all the pictures of special times together. You can add your favorite song or your voice to make it more personal.

You can send kazoo, confetti, cake mix, candles, card, balloons and a happy birthday banner in a mix and write “Do Not Open” on it.

Set up a video chat and tell him to open it. You can also send him a web cam and a microphone so you will be able to do video chat. But, if it is possible, the best idea is to pay him a surprise visit. Do your best not to let him know that you are going to visit him.

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Being a teacher is a very rewarding career; you get a real sense of achievement at the end of the day, knowing that you’re doing your bit to help a group of little people develop and learn. It can also be a very funny career, as sometimes the kids in your care come out with some comedy gems!
Ninety-nine per cent of the time, of course, the kids don’t plan on being funny. In fact, a lot of the time they don’t even know they’ve said something funny until they realise that I’m crying with laughter! There have been some classic moments over the years; like the badly behaved kid in the infant school who called his teacher a “big, bad wolf” when we were all holding our breath waiting for a string of expletives or the little girl who helpfully suggested to our rather butch netball coach that she should have laser hair removal on her moustache, like mummy does.
There’s been many a time I’ve had to stifle the giggles in the classroom or the canteen and even, on one particularly embarrassing occasion, during the end-of-year assembly when all the parents and school governors were attending. I’m sure they all thought I was a terrible teacher! These comedy moments were far from the reason that I went into teaching in the first place, but they’ve turned out to be a rather unexpected bonus.
The kids can brighten up your days in so many ways, not just with daft or funny comments. That’s another reason why I find teaching so rewarding. Every day’s different and, unlike most office jobs, there’s simply no way you can predict what your “workmates” are going to get up to when you arrive in the classroom.

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