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Oftentimes, I find myself tongue-tied when people ask me what I do for a living before I say “English teacher.” Here in Asia the profession has a lot of nuances which makes it hard to define what we do. For example, I know many English teacher...
Oftentimes, I find myself tongue-tied when people ask me what I do for a living before I say “English teacher.” Here in Asia the profession has a lot of nuances which makes it hard to define what we do. For example, I know many English teachers who sit around the room all day cracking jokes while the students join them in this candor. No, this is not an exaggeration, I’m serious. There are also a few English teachers who stand in front of big, crowded lecture halls and discuss the art of doing effective business negotiation (oftentimes without having any business or speaking skills). Hence, the definition of the role of an English teacher is fluid, at best, kind of like water (it could be a solid, liquid, gas, or plasma).
On the surface, one might think that an English teacher teaches grammar, punctuation and spelling. Simple, right? Well, not so fast. Because oftentimes we do more, A LOT MORE.
When I taught in South Korea, oftentimes I felt role confusion because my role changed all the time. It was kind of like playing musical chairs when you were growing up. If I wasn’t clowning around with middle school students, I also acted as therapist and confidante to students who felt anxious about the future which I couldn’t predict either, incidentally, although I sure gave them a good show of confidence about it! (What can you do when you don’t even know YOUR future?).
"Oh don't worry Kim Seung Ho, everything will be fine. You’ll get married and have three children in a nice apartment and commute every day for the rest of your life, don't worry that will happen to you." Talk about a bummer. I jest, but the yearning for the ideal life was and still is a very prominent feature of young people's lives, it’s the human condition. So we English teachers cum humanists find ourselves tasked with the responsibility of also motivating and inspiring our little pupils feeling existential dread. It’s a tough job I tell you! I can’t even talk myself out of that kind of dread.
Evidently, there’s more to just teaching English overseas. And it only gets more and more complicated when you take different age levels into account. There is no authoritative text on teaching English, unless you count Mad Magazine and I’m not so sure people even know what I’m talking about. I’ll wait while you Google it. There are no textbooks as to what an English teacher is supposed to be in a foreign setting. Oh, The British Council can recommend from time to time some good classroom management strategies, but let’s face it: they are as subjective as a cucumber in a pickle fight. In other words, cultural and biased. These recommendations aren’t made by people working in the trenches, day in and day out, toiling with blood, sweat, and tears as they try to convince little Kim Sung that life is worth living even if he doesn’t get into Seoul National University. I’m serious, these are real problems, I mean not real ones like poverty or access to water, but ones they worry about.
Like industries that evolve and change to become largely different than what they were, the role of an English teacher is bound to change and probably faster than any reports provided on the subject. So if you get nothing else from this article, take this to heart: you’ll have to create your own idea of what an English teacher is, one based on your own ethics because certainly everyone else doesn’t have a clue, not even your favorite teacher from high school, Mrs. Megilicuddy who is collecting her pension check while giving extra piano lessons in the evenings just to get by. You’re welcome America.
Everyone has a unique personality and set of skills they bring to whatever industry they self-elect to be apart of. Give yourself an honest assessment and figure out what you bring. Don’t have a clue? Then ask a former teacher who will probably tell you something vague or generic. Or maybe not! Doing this self-evaluation can be beneficial not just for assuming the role of English teacher but for the long term. At the risk of sounding overly New Age and wishy-washy, but I feel compelled to say that these large questions really do matter.
Assuming we only got one life to live, you gotta make it count and figure out how best to provide service at an enjoyable price. Notice I didn’t just say “price.” I said enjoyable price. Etch that into your mind because so many people will tell you it’s impossible and that you need to suffer to earn a living (oh come on, don’t tell me you haven’t run into these types of Boogey people, they’re all around us, can’t you tell? Aren’t they the worst!). First of all, livings aren’t “earned.” They are enjoyed! Isn’t that WHY you majored in basket weaving in the first place? So that you could enjoy your line of work and not kiss up to “the man”? And secondly, I say to be the honest hedonist you were meant to be. You owe it to yourself. What does this look like? Well, let’s see… it might include having a few beers, delegating some of your worksheet-making skills to somebody else, perhaps your unemployed brother who lives in the basement. Let’s face it, he’s not doing anything better. Or just finding yourself a substitute teacher on standby, there are plenty of people waiting in the wings, let me tell you. Just ask New Jersey, they are waiting to become the new, New York.
But I digress. As far as I can tell one of the most important skills as an English teacher is an honest self-assessment of what you bring to the table and industry. Don’t rely on others to tell you what their vision is for being an English teacher because they are probably just sharing what Oprah told them an English teacher should be. It’s not real. And Oprah was never an English teacher (although even this point is debatable if you’ve read this far in the article). Either way her book club makes her a teacher of something.
Knowing who you are and being well integrated with your purpose in life is the most powerful skill you can give your students and fellow teachers in a foreign country. You need to give them a sense of certainty, even when you yourself have no idea what you’re doing. Fake it till you make it, or at least know thyself.
If you’re interested in learning how to partake in self-discovery dear Grasshopper, here are several books to keep thee busy and engaged (like your students):
I reckon this list alone could get you started on a journey far more fulfilling and exciting than the one you recently have been on, before reading this article.
Going back to the initial question “What it is that you do?” The next time someone asks you that, you can either tell them that you are an English teacher and say it with confidence or you could do what I do and say simply say Life Coach. Although the ladder might just confuse people with a therapist, it might just be the most accurate one in depicting what it is that an English teacher actually does.
Todd Persaud holds a BFA from New School University and an MA in Applied Sociology from William Paterson University. He has taught in over 5 countries, and currently resides in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam where he is writing a book about his experiences.
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