I’m Going to be a Teacher
At least for now, it looks as though I will be sticking to my self-employed roots. After various opportunities failed to pan out, a small amount of work has come my way. Maria recommended me to a friend of hers who was interested in learning English. Matías and I met yesterday to talk about his goals and his interest in the language. He was very kind and repeatedly complimented my language abilities as we conducted the entire conversation in Spanish.
As a student of history, Matías frequently comes across English texts in which he is unable to decipher the more complex ideas. Additionally, he will be applying for several graduate programs in the United States for which he will need a good understanding of English as well as pass the TOEFL exam. In his view, his English is very lacking and embarrasses him to some extent. However, my guess is his abilities far exceed what he’s leading me to believe. As we didn’t spend any time speaking in English, we’ll try to assess his abilities next week and go from there.
I provided full disclosure by telling him I was very new to teaching English, but enjoyed it and would do my very best. He had no problem and only cared that I had a great deal of patience. After affirming that I did indeed, I proceeded to mention a few other benefits I could bring as a teacher. As I study Spanish, my appreciation for the difficulty, work, and patience to learn a language continually increases. Consequently, I can relate perfectly to a student because I am one too. Secondly, Matías and I can interact in either English or Spanish, depending on his needs and the difficulty of the lesson. Many foreigners who teach English have very limited Spanish abilities and cannot relate in a bilingual manner. Finally, being from the Midwest, my relatively neutral North Dakota-Minnesota accent should not get in the way of his ability to understand (no offense to my friends from Texas or Cackalacky).
We seemed to interact well and will be starting next week. I was pleasantly surprised when Matías sent me a text message saying his younger brother was also interested in taking classes. I will definitely not get rich teaching English in Buenos Aires, that’s for sure. But it will be great to learn a new skill that I enjoy while meeting and helping new people.
