TEFL TALES – A day in the life of an ESL teacher                       – Ralph Stone

TEFL TALES – A day in the life of an ESL teacher – Ralph Stone

When I first qualified as a TEFL teacher in Thailand, I gained my first full time employment with SLS Language School in Pattaya. I’m very grateful to Paul lambert for giving me that opportunity. My teaching duties varied a lot. I had students who attended the school, and students whose homes I would visit, but my favourite task was going to teach staff at some of the companies in the Eastern Seaboard. The students ranged from university graduated professionals, to manual workers who controlled the various machines and equipment on the factory floor.

On one occasion I was commencing a course with a company that had just awarded a contract to SLS to teach English to some of their Production managers. As a teacher, you are always conscious of wanting to make a good impression on your first day, especially with a new corporate client, irrespective of how much teaching experience you have under your belt. You need to arrive earlier than usual on that first meeting, to set up the visual and audio equipment and make sure that everything is functioning correctly.

The class was scheduled to start at 5:00pm, and it usually took me about 50 minutes to get to the Eastern Seaboard, so I figured I would depart about 3:00, arrive about 4:00, which would give me an hour to perform the initial set up tasks. But, as the poet Robert Burns famously wrote, “The best laid plans of mice and men gang aft agley”.

I departed on schedule at 3:00, and was heading into the Entrance of the Eastern Seaboard at 3:40, and all seemed to be going smoothly until I had to stop at a set of traffic lights. Unfortunately, the driver behind me didn’t notice that all traffic in front of him was stopped at the red lights, and he proceeded to collide into the back of my car. Fortunately, he didn’t hit me at a fast speed, so the damage was minimal. Unfortunately, he was a poor old farmer, with an old dilapidated truck with neither tax nor insurance. Obviously, he didn’t want to call the police, but he didn’t have any money to compensate me for the damage, which I conservatively estimated to be in the region of about 2000 Baht. I had two options. Call the police, which would cause me to be late for my important first teaching appointment, most likely result in a lot of bureaucratic paperwork and also probably prove fruitless regarding compensation. Or I could simply bite the bullet and continue on my journey. Needless to say, I took the second option, much to the delight of the poor old farmer, who went down on his hands and knees to thank this unknown ‘farang’ who had showed such kindness and mercy.

I continued on my journey, arriving at the Company’s Headquarters about 4:15, which still gave me ample time. I went to Reception, where I had to take off my shoes and use the slippers provided. This is common practice in a lot of companies that manufacture electronic equipment, as it prevents possible contamination from harmful substances on the soles of your shoes. Just one small problem on this occasion; there were no big size slippers available. Asians in general have smaller feet than their western counterparts, so there will always be fewer slippers in bigger sizes. Nevertheless, I managed to squeeze my feet into an extremely tight slipper, and the discomfort disappeared as soon as the lovely receptionist produced a cup of coffee and a brownie.

I was escorted to Meeting Room 1, a fine room with a U-Shaped conference table which the students would sit around. The IT guy connected my laptop to the projector and speakers, and after making some minor alterations to the settings on my laptop, my PPT tutorial was good to go. Finally, things were going smoothly again. I glanced at my watch, the time was 4:45, and I sat back and relaxed as I waited for the students to arrive.

The group comprised of 12 students, an even mix of men and women, and although their English ability was Elementary at best, they were keen and eager to impress their teacher in their first encounter. My first lesson usually consists of getting students to talk about themselves, work, family, hobbies etc. It’s a good ice breaker, and can be fun and engaging too.

In this particular lesson, I also teach them how to state their birthdays correctly, as many non-native speakers will generally say something like “My birthday June ten…”                                   I always model my own birthday first, and the PPT Slide displays “My birthday is on the 19th of October”, stressing the ‘19th’ as opposed to 19. I repeated this sentence a few times, and then I posed the question to the young man sitting directly in front of me.                                                                  

“When is your birthday?”                                                                             

The student looked at my PPT Slide and replied “My birthday is 19 October”.                                                                                                                          

I smiled at him. “No, that’s my birthday” I explained. “ When is your birthday?”                                                                

The student looked a little puzzled, and after staring at my PPT Slide again, attempted another answer.  “My birthday is on 19 October”.                                                                                          

I grinned at him mildly. He had used the word ‘on’ this time, but he was still using my own birth date from the PPT Slide.  I didn’t want to embarrass him, and nicely explained once again that he was repeating the teacher’s own personal birthday. I needed his birthday, not mine. I decided to pose the question to the lady sitting beside him, to try to clarify the point.                                                

 “When is your birthday?”, I asked.                                                                                                                                  

She replied “My birthday is on the 22nd of July. “Well done”, I said.                                                                                       

I looked back at the first student again. “Now, do you understand”, I asked.                                                                

“Ah yes, now I understand”, he replied. “My birthday is on the 19th of October”.                                    

I smiled at him again. Grammatically, he was 100% correct, and I praised him for his pronunciation skills, but once again I had to point out that he was just repeating the teacher’s own personal birthday. I needed his birthday, not mine!                                                                                                                                               

“Let’s make this simple”, I said. “What month is Your birthday…May…June…July…?”      

“October”                                                                                                                                          

“Oh, the same month as me” I said. “OK, what date is your birthday?”                                           

“Thursday”                                                                                                                  

“No, not day, date”, I said, becoming a little frustrated.  “What number….5, 6, 7…etc?”                                               

“Oh, sorry teacher, number 19 October………………….”

Finally, the penny dropped. He actually had the same birthday as my own. What an amazing coincidence!