teaching english

i am now a long-term residence permit holder here in the czech republic! this means i’m legal to stay here for at least the next six months and am also legal to earn wages!  this is extremely exciting, as it was definitely a huge concern even before leaving for europe.  people often asked “howwww the heck are you going to stay past ninety days?” i had done some preliminary research and i felt pretty hopeful about it.  plus, there was always my back-up plan of fleeing back to britain for a spell, or perhaps croatia. but britain in the wintertime wasn’t exactly what i was imagining, so i am dang happy this all went off without a hitch.  of course, i still have to make the trek back to bratislava to pick it up, but it’s a done deal!

now that i am legal and all, i will tell you a little about the reason i came to live in CZ to begin with: to teach english!  i’ve been working at a language school for a couple weeks now, and i have a handful of individual lessons i give, usually to professional and busy adults who have at least an intermediate english ability.  native speakers are typically matched with higher level students looking for conversational practice, and they let czech english speaking teachers handle the beginner group classes.

then i have a couple of private students (so far, younger learners between 7–13) that i’ve gained through connections or word of mouth.  

i love this job so far because i am a freelancer: i set my own schedule and pretty much teach the way i want to (influenced of course by the teachings of my lovely TEFL class). native english teachers are valued because the student can really study the correct accent and pronunciation properly, among other positive reasons.  i don’t feel stressed out– well, save my very first lesson– not knowing what to expect! i enjoy helping people better their communication skills and thus their life opportunities.  and of course, i like doing something creative and meeting other people.  i never thought i’d say this, but thank god for sorority formal rush– the ultimate conversational gauntlet.  (you get through sorority formal rush, you know how to talk to anyone. really.) who knew it would be generally what i what do for several years– just chat with people and get them to talk to you.

alex has a different experience, teaching kids aged 4–10 in various primary schools all over the region!  he teachers at several schools here in Budêjovice as well as in nearby Želeĉ and Ĉesky Krumlov as part of the schools’ english curriculum. it is such a great thing for children in rural czech towns to be able to have quality english instruction every week from a native teacher! (either that, or it’s old czech ladies trying to teach little kids english out of a text book, which i’m sure you can imagine how fun that sounds) he likes it a lot and i think it’s a great fit for him.