One of the FAQs that I answered was the classic about whether a couple of years of TEFL would be good for your career back home. The answer was:
“No”
Still, as my DELTA tutor pointed out in his (de)motivational speech before our final exam, you do learn loads of transferable skills that you can still use if you do decide to get out of TEFL. Here are some examples:
– Still knowing how to use Windows 96, even in unknown languages
– Being able to use all kinds of computer keyboards, including ones where the symbols that Windows bring up don’t match the keyboard
– Remembering to back everything up in multiple ways at least three times a day (usually learnt from multiple bad experiences of computers crashing)
– Dealing with arbitrary management decisions
– Unblocking a photocopier
– Being able to find books in apparently random libraries
– Eliciting (e.g.“That’s an interesting question. Why do YOU think I hate your mother?”)
– Being able to communicate with taxi drivers with minimal English when you go back home
– Changing bulbs in OHPs and projectors
– Still knowing what an OHP is, and how to use one
– Understanding Google translations
– Instantly spotting content from Wikipedia (learnt from marking student “homework”)
– Stringing out conversations to fill time (from stretching out the last stage of the lesson because you don’t have any more activities)
– A photographic memory (developed by learning to remember which page certain favourite activities are on)
– Finding a place on a cassette by looking at how much is on each spool
– Still knowing what a cassette is and how to find one
– Being able to draw a cactus without it looking like a penis (after many failed attempts in public)
– Sounding like an expert when you are actually just making it all up (from improvised language explanations)
– Winging it
– Keeping a conversation going with someone you have absolutely nothing in common with
– Keeping a conversation going with yourself to fill the uncomfortable silence left by the other person/ people
– Smiling your way politely through the most reactionary speech that you have ever heard in your life
– Dealing with a dinner party when only one person turns up (from in company classes)
Any more?
I loved that the main point in his “motivational speech” is that you can get out of it. LOL
I know. I still have a giggle every time I remember that speech.
What about…
– Understanding indecipherable handwriting
– Yawning with your mouth closed.
– The ability to read books, and more often, watches upside down.
1. Self-motivation: Relativizing time while at the same time developing a “can do” attitude…
“If I were on the treadmill at the gym right now, I’d only have to hang on another three minutes before I can slack down again, you can do it…”
Yes I Can.
2. First-hand experience and therefore understanding of Nietzsche’s “what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger” statement.
The ability to have a lengthy “conversation” with a deluded and inarticulate individual, without really understanding what the hell this person is actually trying to say, and still ending on amicable terms.
I learned this useful skill not from dealing with students, but from my meetings with the proprietors of small private language schools in the UK.
Being able to listen to several conversations at the same time (from observing group work) – quite helpful if you decide to go into spying.
Another spying skill – the ability to tune into conversations on the other side of the room, developed as part of your L1 ‘radar’.
So, we all seem to agree that we’re suitably qualified to become spies!
“Suitably qualified”?
Maybe we’re spies already (some of us) – how would you know?
:)
Well, back in the good old days in the British Council…
See John Le Carre’s novel ‘Absolute Friends’ (published in 2003 I think)which is about a British Council TEFL teacher who is a spy and double agent.
John Le Carre actually visited the BC school where I was teaching, as part of his characteristically meticulous research, and I was lucky enough to meet him in the reception area as he was trying to use the vending machine. I remember this because I said ‘Mr Le Carre, tea with milk is number 46.’ Quick as a flash, he punched in 46 and without batting an eyelid he said ‘Clever sod, aren’t you?’
A huge talent, especially with dialogue.
oh, i got another one which should come in very handy: writing up a CV, an everlasting topic in TEFL books.
or how about your own little cache of student anecdotes? My favourites from my young learners this year are Me-can you tell me a job beginning with L?SS-lawyer,lifeguard,language teacher,Loverboy.Me -loverboy?SS Yes well he does get paid so it’s a job. Me-What is yellow and round? SS-A sumo wrestler : )
What about the ability to read any kind of handwriting? Regardless of its complete lack of resemblance to the English alphabet