Teaching English CAN be fun

One thread that runs through so many expat blogs is the fact that we often find ourselves teaching English. Husbands/partners may have fancy jobs or are finishing up graduate school, but the other half of the partnership tends to teach English.

A friend of Rachel once reminded her that we teach English so we don’t have to get a job. This is not the case for many, but for some of us we are cobbling together private students and translation services to keep us from having to punch a clock.

While I never considered myself an English teacher by passion, I have found that I meet some pretty interesting people as students. By choice I stick to adult students – WAY more interesting.

For example:

There was the military marine engineer who develops software to map the ocean floor. He needed my help preparing for his conference presentation in Berlin. We cleaned up his PowerPoint slides and he rehearsed his presentation in English. Interesting stuff!

There was the psychologist preparing to defend her Master’s thesis at an American university. I helped to correct the grammar throughout her paper, cleaned up her PowerPoint slides, recorded audio of her entire thesis text so she could listen (again and again) to a native speaker read it, and coached her on practice defense run-throughs.

There was the oil rig engineer who was responsible for safety inspections. We spoke often about the disaster off the coast of Louisiana. He was also in the run-up to his wedding, so he spoke at length about his hopes and fears.

I learned a lot about the public hospital system in Niterói from a young physician student in residence there. Scary stuff.

Oh, and there was the guy who would come to class with Christian children’s songs he wanted help translating. It always felt like he was doing his best to convert me to his religion. And he hated all things Lula. He doesn’t come around any longer. I may have been a little too harsh with him.

What about you, my fellow teachers, any fun or interesting characters among your students?