Right now I’m working at two institutes, or private language schools. They teach adults throughout the day and kids in an after-school class. Though I’ve been asked to do otherwise, so far I’ve only taught grown-ups. Word of mouth and
personal reference seem to be how jobs are found in this profession, and in Argentina in general, from what I’ve heard. I guess that’s why it has taken over three months to finally have a full schedule. At first I was only working at Highlands Institute with a few hours per week. This soon turned into one or two hours per day plus a lot of substitute dates. All my letters of reference, license, diploma and C.V. detailing sizeable experience weren’t good enough. They had to get to know me, figure out that indeed I wasn’t the worst teacher they’d ever had, then offer me more hours. Then our friend Aya recommended me to Star Institute and I’ve started with some students there as well. It’s about a 20 minute walk to Highlands, another 15 minutes from there to Star. I generally take a 10 minute bus ride instead of walking if I’m traveling between home and Star, since it might take 45 minutes to get there. Classes are generally 60 or 90 minutes. Classes meet once or twice a week. I have a sort-of team-teach thing going on for some classes, in which I teach one day, she teaches the other. Also there are a few classes in which I replace the Argentine teacher once a month, so the students can get access to my sweet Minnesotan English. More than half of my classes are one-on-one. I’ve never had any classes larger than six students. All our attempts to get private students have come to nothing. They’ve all either expressed interest then never followed through or took one class, didn’t pay and never came back. This week a friend is leaving town and passing me a student who will come right to our apartment for class! I am optimistic. Lou has been working out some language exchanges in which she teaches English for an hour, then gets some Spanish for an hour.
I’m at the point now at which I can be choosy about the classes I accept. I’ve turned down some classes with other schools due to tough schedules or bad word of mouth from other English teachers, and travelers who find work teaching. I even considered teaching little kids until I got reports of late paychecks, above-average expections for below average pay and general disorganization. And speaking of ‘word of mouth,’ just by virtue of knowing me, being a native English speaker and being cute as a button, Louann has started to teach a few one-on-one classes at Highlands as well, though some of those are off-site at a place of business. All of my regular gigs are in the actual schools, but last week I subbed a couple days at the Ministry of Something-or-Other, teaching two guys whose job it is to help rid Argentina of the Mediterranean Horned Fly, which apparently has been making its way southward from Panama ever since it hitchhiked over with the canal builders. Who knew? The gentlemen’s ambition to study English obviously wasn’t related to their work. I don’t even speak Mediterranean.
Ok here are some paragraphs for the English teachers. Anyone else can go check their email again, this might get kind of boring. At Highlands we’re using New Interchange for lower general English classes and Opportunities (Longman) for higher ones. Also there seems to be a great desire for Business English. There is a series called Market Leader we use. It comes from the econ magazine The Financial Times, so it is fairly high-interest but it uses British English. At first the whole concept of Business English was funny to me. I thought “just let me teach English.” But as I get to know the material and get to know the learners and their professions, I’m seeing that the targeted vocab and grammar is actually going to be useful for them. Most of them work for subsidiaries of international companies and need to communicate with the yanquis who just bought them out. At Star they are using a series from Oxford English called English File. More X, Y, Zed English. Maybe the Brits are better marketers down here. There is one place in Downtown Mendoza where I think all the ESL material for the city is sold. But it is quite common to make copies of an entire book. In fact, the local copy shop near the institute has copies of most of our books, so that we can just send students to the shop to buy a bound, black-and-white copy. I suppose it’s quite a bit cheaper for students that way.
I brought a couple of grammar books with me and they’ve been OK for working on discrete grammar points, but there are so many other things I wish I would/could have brought. I’m starting to make new sets of conversation cards and filling an accordion folder with copies of articles, worksheets and a few pictures for just the right moment. Luckily most of what I need is still rattling around my coffee-addled brain from the last ten years of similar work. I admit I am still trying to remember what kind of activities and games to use with high-level students, since it has been so years since I’ve needed them. If you have any ideas, please send them along.
I suppose that’s about the basics of what my work is like here. The people have been friendly. The students or their employers are paying, so attendance is pretty good. Argentines aren’t generally shy people, so getting them to speak isn’t an issue. Yesterday I was a little frustrated by a class that insisted on translating everything into Spanish. Maybe that’s what their regular teacher considers teaching English. It’s a new experience for me to have to teach a homogeneous population and be able to resort to their language from time to time. But most classes are close to 100% English. Most of the people had some English in High School, and then picked it up again as an adult. I am amazed at how well some people speak English despite having never been to an English-speaking country. It’s certainly better than my Spanish, and I’ve been working at it awhile (but that sounds like another blog entry).
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