A few weeks ago, I had a bit of an out-of-body experience.
It was a beautiful Saturday afternoon and I had nothing else to do, so I decided to check out a park on the east side of town. The park was very nice and gave me some time to think about the important few weeks that would follow in my job search, the census, taxes, etc. After a couple hours perusing the scenery, I recognized that I was near one of the places that defined my Prague experience.
What was that place? A science lab.
What in the name of Petr Arenberger’s property records does a science lab have to do with teaching English?
You see, in my current job teaching adults, the language schools provide a wide range of different clients. I’ve worked with students from IT, banking, sales, pharmaceuticals, rubber stamp creation (my personal favorite), and yes, scientists. Most times, the matching of teachers to clients is fairly random and you just hope there’s chemistry there. Many students and I have been a perfect match. Others have not, but after a while, we’ve made it work.
And some just flat out don’t work at all.
Let’s just say that if the scientists had had the chance to see me in their match queue before they met me, they would have swiped left.
It was one of the first clients (it was actually four courses, but they generally all had the same issues) I accepted after my TEFL program, and let’s just say it was Buffalo Sabres-esque.
It was bad.
Being a new teacher (or at least new to TEFL at the time), I mostly went by the book and didn’t want to ruffle any feathers. I taught my early lessons in the exact same format as my lessons at The Language House (for those who don’t know, that was my TEFL program, 10/10 would recommend). It was almost to the point of robotic. I had no idea how to choose a textbook. The concept of what was level appropriate was still brand new to me. Time management? What time management? The combination of these things plus all the administrative tasks forced my head to spin.
All things considered, I still did fine with most of my early courses.
But not this one.
In the seven weeks I had the course, there were numerous complaints about me and my teaching style. Every time I breathed too loud, the students had something to say about it. Demoing (showing students what to do before they work on an exercise) was stupid to them. My playful “Mike and Ike” shtick, a demo technique which I used frequently at TLH, was frowned upon. I vividly remember one student raising his hand to shout at me and tell me the material was too easy. My error correction methods were reported to be confusing and nonexistent (they were there, I promise). The business textbook that I chose for a group of supervisors and managers was laughed at.
Quickly, attendance dwindled, as the students clearly were not buying what I was selling. I felt as if my credibility was sunk.
After every lesson, there seemed to be an email about these courses. I got called in to meet with the academic director and had to try and defend every little thing I was doing. All this during a three-month probation period when my job was on the line.
I tried numerous solutions but nothing worked. Finally, after about a month, the client decided to pull the plug on me. I was replaced. I continued to teach the course for a few weeks while a new teacher was found. Luckily, other clients saw the good things in me, so thankfully, the language school stuck with me, which is something I’ll be forever grateful for.
But I’d still be lying if I said it weren’t a tough pill to swallow. And it wasn’t just because I’m a people pleaser, either.
I remember having serious reservations about continuing in the teaching field. I was totally gutted and had lost a lot of my confidence. As a whole, the first three months with my initial language school were not my proudest (the scientists were not the only situation in which this sort of thing happened, but it’s definitely the one I remember the most).
But as I have with a lot of things in life, I somehow found a way to stick it out.
I think it was a combination of my resiliency, adaptability, and being locked into a contract with stiff financial penalties if you don’t adhere to the three-month notice period. After this experience, I made adjustments. Lots of adjustments. I stopped using or modified a number of the teaching techniques that fell flat with the scientists. I stopped trying to be a hero and do everything on my own and recognized that I needed to ask for help from fellow teachers and mentors. I started taking my needs analysis activity (basically a survey at the beginning of each course in which you ask the students about their English goals and what they want from you) seriously instead of treating it as a formality or throwaway activity. I communicated with the students and made it a point to ask them for their feedback so they could give it to me instead of going over my head and right to the school. And as little time as I had, I really took the time to more carefully choose textbooks for students rather than just blindly forcing one upon them.
The results were noticeable. After the first three months, my students were generally much happier. Following the early speed bumps, I did not lose any more students or courses due to the quality of my teaching (and it’s been a year and a half now). While what happened with the scientists and the others was not ideal and I was embarrassed by it at the time, it did teach me some powerful lessons. No lesson was more important, however, than the value of never giving up.
That’s why I sought out the science lab on that sunny Saturday afternoon. I wanted to show myself how far I and my teaching have come. Some people are afraid to look back at their failures and never think about them again, but I’m not one of those people. Mistakes make us human. No one has ever gotten to where they’ve gotten to without a mistake or two along the way. It’s how you react to the mistakes which is the most critical thing.
When I stood before those scientists, I was a new, uncertain, and nervous teacher just getting into the world of TEFL. But as I looked at the building on that day a few weeks ago, I realized that the teacher of a year and a half ago would be pretty proud of the teacher now. If I had another chance to teach those students, I’m confident that things would have gone differently and that I would have learned from my mistakes to the point where they would have actually been impressed. The evolution has led to many great opportunities, including the new job that awaits me. If I had just given up and gone home because of one bad experience, I would have missed out on so much. In the past 18 months, I’ve seen so many beautiful places around Europe (as many as COVID has allowed), met some of the best friends I’ve had here (fun fact: most of my good friends are not people from my TEFL month or even TEFL program), had amazing experiences such as summer camp and holiday celebrations, and learned so much about myself.
Why am I being so candid about this? I can already hear my family yelling at me, “Mike, you don’t want a future employer getting wind of this stuff!” Fair enough. But that part isn’t as important to me as sending a critical message that people in all walks of life can benefit from.
That critical message is this: One failure wasn’t the worst thing in the world.
Sometimes, I forget that. For me, this failure was actually a good thing in a way as it taught me so much. Obviously, we should never be OK with failure, but if we’re also not OK with learning from the failure, then we’re doing something wrong. If we’re not using our failures to become better, we are OK with failure. If you’re OK with failure, then you’re just the Buffalo Sabres front office. Aim higher and don’t be disconnected to the star players in your lives! I mean, Jack Eichel has learned something from his failures, and that is that he deserves much better than the dog-and-pony show which is the Buffalo Sabres. Just like the carrot-topped captain of the most dysfunctional franchise in sports (sorry, Houston Texans, we have you beat), failure can teach you something, too. In fact, failure is truly our greatest teacher.
You know, that sounded really good. Why don’t I say that again?
Failure is truly our greatest teacher.
Yes, it’s true. As I embark on my third year in Prague and a new chapter in my teaching experience, I’ll always think back to those scientists. I’ve said many times that teaching is a two-way street and that teachers should also learn something from their students. Frankly, those scientists didn’t teach me a thing about science. Instead, they taught me something far more important…
I am stronger than I’ll ever know.
Czeching Out the World of TEFL 