An Interview for English Teachers

[penguin10916]

Even as a college student, I am still trying to figure out what I want to do. And surely enough, after some research, I have found myself to being interested in teaching English be it my own country or somewhere else in the world. Anyways, for my Comp. II class, I was given the option to choose a subject that interested me to write on as long as I included an interview of some sort. And surprisingly, when I asked the prof about doing an interview on a forum, she had no problem with it. :-D So here are my questions. Feel free to answer the questions you want to.

1.) What made you interested in teaching the English language?

2.) What steps did you have to take in order to become an English language teacher?

3.) What was the hardest part about becoming an English Teacher?

4.) When you moved to the part of the world where you are teaching now, how hard was it for you to adjust to a different culture and a new life style?

5.) With teaching, what struggles are there and which were the hardest to overcome?

6.) What age group do you generally teach to?

7.) How do you compensate for the variety of learning styles that can be found in a single classroom?

8.) As far as moving and living, what assistance has the school that you work for or the agency that you're going through given you?

9.) What teaching styles do you generally use to teach English?

10.) Has becoming an ESL teacher been worth your time?

 

[Tdol]

For number 5, one of the struggles facing ESL is the deskilling that is going on in some areas, with the race to the bottom in terms of qualifications and salaries, and this is likely only to get worse. There's a lot of money in training and there are courses churning out people who really aren't up to the job in droves. Add this to long recession and high unemployment and the outlook is gloomy in some parts, though, fortunately, this is not universal.

 

[penguin10916]

That seems interesting. With there being more and more teachers who are being sent to teach with less training and ability, do you think it will be hard for them to adjust to the culture, or will the ESL profession fall into the claws of people who want an easy ride to Japan?