I know, I know, I’ve been spreading this news like crazy the past couple of days, but now it’s official! From August 1st I will be switching jobs. I will go from a regular English teacher to an English teacher trainer. That’s right, I will train others to do the job I’ve been doing for the past 5 years. How cool is that?! Since I cannot post the entire low down on twitter due to a 140 character limit, I figured a blog would be in place to a) celebrate and b) tell you more about the whys whats and hows. Keep on reading!
In March my current job finally informed me that they would let go of my by the time my contract expires. The problem: not because I don’t do a good job, but money issues. The school I work for right now isn’t very financially solid and therefore keeps 30% of the work force on flexible contracts. That way they can let go of whoever they want whenever they need to. To top things off, the school is also trying to downsize. They’d rather have 200 students who sign up and stay till graduation than admitting 400 students in year one only to lose half of them by the end of the first year. Due to that, they will also need less teachers soon. So all those facts thrown together, made that I couldn’t stay on and they weren’t going to give me a permanent contract, which automatically meant I can’t stay.
I already saw this coming from 1000 miles away, since this is what has been happening ever since I started the job. After 3 yearly contracts, employees are simply fired. That is why I’ve been on the look out for jobs as early as October. Nothing good came by. All jobs I found were too far away from my knowledge base and if they were interesting it was only for a few months. Then, finally in January I started to find some interesting stuff. At the end of February I was invited to two interviews. Both of them were a bit of a long shot: one on a high school in The Hague and one as a teacher of communication in Rotterdam.
I didn’t get both jobs. The high school one I decided against myself after the interview, so when they called me to say they thought of me as more of a teacher for college students, I couldn’t agree with them more. The Rotterdam job I would have liked to have, but since I haven’t finished my degree in that topic just yet, they also decided against me. In March I found 2 jobs which interested me: one in Amsterdam and one in Tilburg. I was invited to both and had the Tilburg interview right before Easter. It was a great interview and I was notified last Tuesday that they wanted me for a second interview. However, this job was not the one that I had my sights set on. The minute I read the vacancy for the Amsterdam job I knew I wanted to get it.
And guess what? It’s the job I got! The job is in Amsterdam which is a lot closer to where I live then where I work now. I figure it will cost me roughly 30 – 45 minutes less time to get to work. In total it will save me 1 – 1.5 hours a day! But that’s not why this job was so attractive to me. One wish I have had was to do more than teach grammar rules and basic English skills. Since the job is for an English teacher trainer, I will finally get to do just that. In fact, I already know some of the subjects I will get to teach and I am the happiest bunny alive as they are all right up my alley. Finally: more content to work with and even the prospect of a permanent contract and the ability to eventually teach courses in the Master’s program!
Some of the stuff I will be doing:
- mentoring students
- teach advanced English proficiency skills (students have to acquire a near-native level of English)
- teach Introduction to Linguistics (including phonetics, my one big love!)
- teach Sociolinguistics (about which I already wrote several papers and my English MA thesis)
- teach Teaching Skills
The teaching skills course will be the biggest challenge for me as my teaching theory is a bit rusty. I had to do it, but since my teaching course only lasted a year and I pretty much taught myself by doing it rather than reading about it, this will take some time to grasp. About all the other things I can only be excited. They are all topics or activities I am familiar with or which I know a lot about. Oh and did I mention that I could possibly even use my knowledge of communication? They told me they are having major problems trying to get the right information to the right students and they are also interested in exploring the use of social media for their teaching practices. I smell a possible thesis topic here!
Excuse the super long post, but I am just too excited! I think next year will become a busy but inspiring year. I will definitely learn something from this job, even if I would only get to keep it for a little while. I am also just really relieved to have found such a cool job so quickly. This week has been quite stressful as I didn’t know what to think after my interview as I had expected a lot more from it. But then on Wednesday I got the message that they wanted to offer me a job and they wanted to discuss contract possibilities as soon as possible. So I went in yesterday and the contract is being made as we speak. Today I will be telling my current boss and then the word will most definitely spread like wild fire.
So after summer, I will not only start my final year as a college student, but I will also have a new job to look forward to.