If you move abroad, there’s a pretty good chance that at some point during your life
as an expat you’ll work as a language teacher.
For me, of course, that meant teaching English. So here’s a look into my life as an English
teacher in Germany: the pros, the cons, and a few interesting bits in between.
Hey everyone! I’m Dana and you’re watching Wanted an Adventure Living Abroad.
The one thing I can say right off the bat, is that for me, working as an English teacher
certainly never got boring.
I didn’t work nine to five in a school; I worked as a freelance English teacher, which
meant that my schedule pretty much changed every week.
I “worked for” several languages schools around the city. And I put “worked for” in
quotes because I wasn’t really employed with them; they just found me work.
They arranged my classes, times, locations, and pay. But I could always say no
to a certain class if I wanted to.
And as far as money went, my students paid the school,
and then the school paid me a cut of that.
I could have made more money per hour without the schools, without the middle man, but as
someone totally new to the city it would have been really hard for me to find my own students.
Plus, then I had access to all the school resources, books, copy machines,
which was definitely helpful.
This arrangement and the fact that I was signed up with several different schools meant that I ended
up teaching many different kinds of students.
And that was what kept things really interesting. Oh the people I met as an English teacher!
For example, one of my students was a German woman who judged shooting competitions in
Croatia during her vacations. Apparently, the matches were in English, and so she wanted
to increase her vocabulary in that area.
I once taught a truck driver who was being sent over to Brazil to drive semi-trucks for
his company. They had told him that he either needed to learn English or learn Portuguese,
and apparently he picked English.
Often times my students were learning English for their job, and so I’d actually go teach
them at their offices. I taught in offices all around the city, which was really something
I loved about the job! It was a great way to get to know Munich and to get to see the inside
of some buildings that I probably never would have gotten to see otherwise.
Such as the amazing Munich Re building. Munich Re is a reinsurance company with several
locations around the city, and the location that they have on the Leopoldstrasse is….
it could be a museum. They could charge an entrance fee for people to go in there.
The first time that I taught there, my student just spent the whole class giving me a tour of
the place. And I felt really privileged to get to see inside. So if you have a friend who works
there, be sure to ask for a tour. It’s definitely worth it.
Oh, and to get inside, I had to walk through the legs of the Walking Man, which is a
17-meter tall statue in front of the building.
I also taught several groups of students at Ludwig Beck, which is this really nice department
store in the main downtown square.
I got to teach the people responsible for the window decorations and for the merchandising,
so really I was the teacher, but I ended up learning a lot about retail too.
I’m still friends today with some of my students from those classes, so hi guys!
One of the cons of teaching, well teaching freelance at least, is the hours.
I was technically my own boss, but not really.
If you’re working freelance, that means your schedule is pretty much
in the hands of the gods.
Most students want their classes either before work or after work. Which means that there are days
when you have to get up really early, teach a couple hours, then have nothing until the
evening, then teach a few more hours. And that’s your day.
Another not so nice part about teaching is that sometimes you'll just get duds for students.
Now this didn’t happen to me often, and I was really thankful for that, but occasionally I did get classes
that just didn’t participate.
It was like pulling teeth to get them to answer questions or play along. Or sometimes I
got students who were resentful that they had to learn English. They needed it, perhaps, for their
work, but they were feeling angry or resentful about having to learn it, and that never made for a fun class.
But for the most part, it was a really great, really stimulating experience.
Now, this video was meant to be an entertaining video about my overall experiences
as an English teacher.
But I realize that some of you out there are actually interested in teaching in Germany.
So I will make another video with more technical information regarding how to get a job, the
different options for teachers, and more specialized pros and cons going along with each of those
options. So keep an eye out for that.
So my question for you is, do you think that English is a hard language to learn compared to other
languages out there? Why or why not? Please let me know in the comments below.
Thanks so much for watching! Please don’t forget to subscribe and hit that like button.
Until next time, auf Wiedersehen!
That's a wrap!