Even though I don´t know the grammar it seems like I have been blessed with a natural ability to communicate...except in spanish but that´s another story. I don´t like to throw around lots of terms like "teaching genius" and "savant" but I´m just saying...

Teaching is a weird experience. You are sitting there and have to watch every single word you say, especially with beginners. We say filler words like "umm", "like", "kind of", "you know", etc...they have no idea what this means and start taking notes. You can´t talk with your back turned or while you are writing on the board because it is much more difficult for them to understand you. You can´t just lecture because it is boring, so you have to create "activities" to stimulate "student-student interaction". Planning that is almost as much fun as getting your wisdom teeth taken out...and that was fun!

But, most importantly, you have to "dumb down" your language. Vocab is usually what is holding students back the most and you can´t introduce them to too many words or sayings at once. We use so much slang in our daily converstations that it is tough to sometimes stop yourself from using it in the classroom. For some reason, "holla" doesn´t translate the way I want it to.

Even though I complain a little (that´s what I do) it´s fun. I had students thank me after class and are very appreciative. If there is anyone out there looking for a way to move to another country, this is it. There is demand for the service and just by being lucky and being born in an English speaking country, you are qualified for the job...except Ben Betz and Sick Boy.

Even with all these obstacles (the biggest being my lack of knowledge of the English language) I was able to miraculously teach modal verbs to advanced students and the present perfect tense to intermediates this week. At the end of my Thursday class with the advanced students, I asked them to use the modals we learned (must, should and could) in sentences and tell me things to do in Madrid. This Polish lady who already speaks Polish, Russian, French and Spanish tells me,

"In Madrid, you must get married if you aren´t already. You should look for a beautiful Spanish girl and practice with her. You could have beautiful babies because mixed race children are attractive."

What can I say, I´m an amazing teacher...

FUNNY AD I saw in the paper the other day... "English taught in any position. Call for more information."