Job Discussion Forums

[WhirlwindTobias]

Some of you may say this belongs in the Poland forum, but I thought it was better posted here as I want the users who posted in the following thread to see the fruits of their labour:

http://forums.eslcafe.com/job/viewtopic.php?p=1193341#1193341

I don't know if threads of this nature are allowed here, so excuse me if it's not.

Anyway after posting that, I thought long and hard about my future. I travelled to Poland a few more times to visit my friends and confirm my decision to leave the UK. I got lucky, my work needed extra help and I did as many hours as there were available. I saved up a considerable amount, enough to live there for many, many months and moved in October.

Today I have a trial lesson for a teaching school. I've been teaching privately for a while, got plenty of experience and a Third party spotted my Ad on gumtree. Although I have had no prior experience with groups and very little one on one, my language skills and enthusiasm convinced the recruiter to give me a shot. They want to see how I handle a group for 20 minutes; 10 minutes for rapport building and 10 minutes for an exercise.

Suffice to say I'm both excited, and nervous. This is a big favour on their part, and I want to try my utmost to not disappoint. I've been preparing since 5am this morning. My challenge is to demonstrate the difference between how much and how many, a relatively easy exercise but it's the group dynamic that I'm apprehensive about.

I've also been invited to observe group lessons in the near future.

I want to give major thanks to nomad soul, santi84, 3701 W.119th, esl_prof, Alien abductee, happyinshangqiu and spiral78 for all their contribution towards me moving here and trying to establish a career in teaching.

BTW, I was told to make the Much/Many explanation fun, and I am taking props with me (bag of sugar, a container, and a spoon). Does anyone have any other ideas to make it fun? Thanks.

[nomad soul]

How did your demo lesson go?

[WhirlwindTobias]

It went well, thank you Nomad. I had a few shortcomings, but most of it was due to the 20 minute time constraint and lack of group teaching experience. Plus it didn't help that the group were in the middle of working and I was cutting in on their productivity to suffice to say they weren't paying much attention.

Regardless I showed enough potential for the recruiter (English teacher with 15+ years experience) to take me under their wing, teach me all they know and for the next few weeks I'll be teaching small groups at 1hr sessions in an attempt to prove my capabilities.

I also now have 6 private students, which means I'm busy as well as tense due to the above.

[spiral78]

Congrats:-)
And don't worry too much - it DOES get easier!

[nomad soul]