English Teacher For French-Speaking Students
Career review from a person working in the job
How I Got The Job
My Education: Sales diploma, Paris IX University
My Prior Experience: I used to work as a sales representative for many years before finding this job. It is in no way related to my diploma or career, but it's what I had wanted to do for a long time.
My Job Profile
My Company: I work for an association who promotes a bilingual system in private schools.
Job/Career Overview: My job is to teach basic english to french pupils, from kindergarden to primary school. The association I work for uses a simple method invented by a spanish teacher. With stories, role-plays, flash cards, games and songs, kids learn very rapidly.
As they are bilingual pupils, we don't want them to translate everything in their minds to understand what they have to do. By the language and the situation, they understand, even if they are very young, what is going on and they enjoy it a lot.
A typical day would start by some kind of teaching 'ritual', for example ask for the date, ask for their names, for the weather, or just ask how they are. Then, when you start a complete cycle, you perform a story, containing special vocabulary and ideas they are going to learn. Around this story, you use flashcards to play a kind of bingo game, songs using vocabulary, etc.
Love It? Hate It?
I rate this career 8 out of 10.
What I Love or Hate
The best part is that I can work with children. It's the best thing I do in my life right now. Even when I am tired or depressed, a child smiling puts me in the best mood. Plus, I'm speaking a language I love since I know it, and I love being able to teach it.
The worst could be that when I am very tired, a whole class of children is difficult to handle. And also, I'm not very well paid. But there are many more positives in this job than negatives.
My Career Tips
First thing, of course, would be to like working with children, and to have a lot of patience. You should remember that you do this job to help children learning and speaking english. It's not just a 'job'; working should be a pleasure.
You must have authority too, to be respected and handle all situations that can happen.
