Robyn.Bowles.es

We graduated from our TEFL (Teaching English as a Foreign Language) one week ago. After we returned from our trip to Mallorca on Wednesday, the madness of interviewing began. We had both received calls from the same places while we were in Mallorca. Fortunately, our mobile service reached there, and so we were able to set up appointments for interviews while we were there. My interviews were scheduled first in the day. The first one did not go well at all. I was told that they wanted me to prepare a lesson and teach it as part of the interview. The topic: the difference between conditional 1 and conditional 2. I panicked. I quickly scoured my brain to try to recall what type of sentences these were. I knew that they both contained “if” in the sentence; and I knew where to find the information in my manual. Blank. It was a very humiliating experience to tell this woman that I could not do from memory. I asked for a manual – she told me that if a student asked this question, I would need to know how to answer it then and there and I wouldn’t have time to look in a manual for every answer.
I replied that if I didn’t know an answer, I would tell the student that I would look into it and explain it the next lesson. (That, by the way, was a conditional 2 sentence!). Still not good enough.
I felt embarrassed and humiliated as she walked me down the seemingly eternal hallway, down the stairs to the front door. I walked around aimlessly for about twenty minutes, eventually finding my way to the next interview, 45 minutes early. I had a lot of time to think about what I was doing. I figured I would call the American Embassy later that day and inquire about any American doctor’s offices that may be looking for English-speaking help. I also recalled an ad I recently saw for an English speaking babysitter . . . Ironically, as I was thinking of these things, I opened the notebook I had with me to write down my thoughts and the page to which I opened the book contained all of my notes on conditional sentences.

The next interview was very different: the office was much smaller and seemed to be somewhat disorganized. The man I met with, Julio, did not speak very much English. He offered me a job 3 hours per week working in an elementary school. It would be Monday, Wednesday, Friday 8:30 – 9:30. There would be eight 9-year olds. I got a bit nervous when he repeatedly emphasized that I mustn’t let them touch anything in the room and I must make sure they know that I am the teacher. My mind raced back to fourth grade, I tried to recall what my classmates and I were like at that age . . . all I could remember was that I really liked that teacher. I took it.

They were to be beginners and he suggested starting off working on saying names, ages, simple things. We would get books in two weeks, until then I was to basically keep them under control and play games. I consoled myself with the fact that it was only 3 hours a week, and it was a start.

The reality, however, was much different. I started with 16 students in my classroom; and after several interruptions by Julio to rearrange the students, I ended up with twelve: nine boys, three girls. They were not beginners. They rattled off the alphabet, numbers, animals, countries and colors with ease. One of the boys talked non-stop. They had been told that I do not know any Spanish, but they tried anyway. I had to move five of the kids to different desks. I’m sure that at least half of the time I was telling them to be quiet, or turn around. I did get to know their names well.

At 9:15, when I finally felt like we were getting somewhere, Spanish pop music started playing over the loudspeaker. Suddenly the kids were very distracted, they eventually started shouting something to me in Spanish. I again had to remind them to be quiet, raise their hands, wait to be called on and speak and English! They told me that the music meant it was time to move to the next class. It didn’t seem right, because I was told the class went until 9:25; yet, why would they continue to play this music? I asked the other students if this was true, and they all agreed, so – having received no previous instruction regarding the rules in this school – I let them go. Most left the classroom. A few stayed and indicated that their next class was in that room. I continued to sit there until 9:25, then I went down the hallway to meet up with another teacher I knew from my TEFL class. She said that Julio told her to meet him downstairs after the class. So we went downstairs.

After talking with Julio, we learned that the music indicates the time when the lower elementary students come into the school; but we are not to dismiss our classes for another ten minutes. And because the music is too loud to teach anything for those ten minutes, they are to work on activities for that time. Also, all the students are to leave the classroom after the class. The door is to be locked and the lights turned off. Oops. A lot of this information would have been VERY HELPFUL to know ahead of time. Such is my life as a TEFL teacher so far.

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