Cathy Thompson
Member
- Joined
- Dec 9, 2014
- Member Type
- English Teacher
- Native Language
- English
- Home Country
- UK
- Current Location
- France
Dear All - I'd appreciate the advice of people who have been teaching for some time, if possible (in France - better still!). I live in France and my main (almost ex) career is in publishing, as an editor - so I work with words. Before we moved here I knew it would be harder to earn a living, so took a short, weekend TEFL course. I have some previous teaching experience in horticulture, mostly with adults but I had teenagers too - some said I was quite good at it.
I like quite like teaching, although I find it very stressful, and recently found myself wishing I had trained properly as a teacher (perhaps primary). But now I am in a little bit of a pickle. In August I advertised for work, mainly to help us to eat, not to find something 'to do'! I now have one private pupil for English (!!). The teacher in our own (this is important - it's where we live) village school rang me up and asked if I'd like to teach there - I had never really envisaged standing in front of a class of 7-10 year olds, but I said 'yes'. I was told it would be voluntary; wasn't really happy about that, but said nothing. Then they added the affiliated kindergarten into the equation. So on Mondays I do two schools - only 3/4 hour each, but there's an awful lot of preparation as I am not an experienced teacher of English and I have the added difficulty of having absolutely no control over how the classroom is laid out - have to drag my own laptop in, with the technical difficulties of internet connection, electrics getting in the way and causing additional stress.
So it works out to be about 5 hours a week (plus, sometimes) with the teaching, preparation, travelling time. Certainly it occupies virtually the whole of my Monday.
This was ok, and then on about week 7 a small change occurred - two/three of the children started causing problems/getting a bit rude. I take on board the fact that I am partly responsible for this because I was probably too friendly to start with and haven't really worked on building up the respect side of the relationship! But it made an already stressful (unpaid) situation even more stressful. I'm not working with the schools this week, and to be honest wish I didn't ever have to go back again! (Should have mentioned that it's even more stressful because I'm doing it mostly in French.)
I've checked with French friends unrelated to the village and the response has been anything from a rolling of the eyes when I say I'm not being paid, to another woman (a singer, teaching singing) who says never, never do it for nothing. They need to know that they have to pay.
Now I'm in a dilemma - part of me wants to go back next week and slay the dragon (that's what it feels like!!!), just for me. The other part of me wants not to go near it again and say I just have too much work (which actually, this week anyway, I do).
Sorry this is so long, but I wanted to be honest about all the facts so that I could get an honest opinion from experienced teachers. It is hard enough to be on the receiving end of children's rudeness when it really is a job - but when it's not, what do you do? And then there's the cost of printer cartridges etc. to prepare for lessons ...
I like quite like teaching, although I find it very stressful, and recently found myself wishing I had trained properly as a teacher (perhaps primary). But now I am in a little bit of a pickle. In August I advertised for work, mainly to help us to eat, not to find something 'to do'! I now have one private pupil for English (!!). The teacher in our own (this is important - it's where we live) village school rang me up and asked if I'd like to teach there - I had never really envisaged standing in front of a class of 7-10 year olds, but I said 'yes'. I was told it would be voluntary; wasn't really happy about that, but said nothing. Then they added the affiliated kindergarten into the equation. So on Mondays I do two schools - only 3/4 hour each, but there's an awful lot of preparation as I am not an experienced teacher of English and I have the added difficulty of having absolutely no control over how the classroom is laid out - have to drag my own laptop in, with the technical difficulties of internet connection, electrics getting in the way and causing additional stress.
So it works out to be about 5 hours a week (plus, sometimes) with the teaching, preparation, travelling time. Certainly it occupies virtually the whole of my Monday.
This was ok, and then on about week 7 a small change occurred - two/three of the children started causing problems/getting a bit rude. I take on board the fact that I am partly responsible for this because I was probably too friendly to start with and haven't really worked on building up the respect side of the relationship! But it made an already stressful (unpaid) situation even more stressful. I'm not working with the schools this week, and to be honest wish I didn't ever have to go back again! (Should have mentioned that it's even more stressful because I'm doing it mostly in French.)
I've checked with French friends unrelated to the village and the response has been anything from a rolling of the eyes when I say I'm not being paid, to another woman (a singer, teaching singing) who says never, never do it for nothing. They need to know that they have to pay.
Now I'm in a dilemma - part of me wants to go back next week and slay the dragon (that's what it feels like!!!), just for me. The other part of me wants not to go near it again and say I just have too much work (which actually, this week anyway, I do).
Sorry this is so long, but I wanted to be honest about all the facts so that I could get an honest opinion from experienced teachers. It is hard enough to be on the receiving end of children's rudeness when it really is a job - but when it's not, what do you do? And then there's the cost of printer cartridges etc. to prepare for lessons ...