My Job

I thought I’d tell you about my job. I work for a language school, but I go to the client’s business place for the classes. Most of my lessons are with one individual, a one-to-one class. I also have a few small groups – 2 or 3 people having one lesson together. At this point I have 15 students in 10 different slots. I have had a few others, but either their course has finished or I was filling in for a one- time lesson. The companies vary in what they do, insurance, automotive, and environmental being the three main companies that go to. The students vary in what they do from financial managers to engineers. They also vary in their language levels from elementary to advanced.
French students receive a good foundation in English when they go to school, with the emphasis on grammar, writing and reading. They don’t necessarily have much opportunity to speak English, though. As more and more international companies rely on English for the common language, business people need to be able to speak it and understand it. The French government requires companies to provide employees with training, so many companies use English training to fulfill that requirement.
The main emphasis for most of the students, therefore, is conversation. Couched within the conversation are grammar and vocabulary. My students are all interesting and we have had some very interesting conversations. As you can imagine, the U.S. election process has been a topic that generates a lot of interest and some of my students have wanted to understand the caucus and primary system. I took part in the Colorado caucus during the 2004 election so I have been able to explain how it works in Colorado.
So, the job itself is interesting and rather fun. Unfortunately, there are a few drawbacks to working for a language school like this. For one thing, I spend a lot of time traveling to the businesses. The other day I spent 1 ½ hours on the round trip to teach a 1 ½ hour class. A couple of weeks ago, I spent 3 hours traveling for a 2 hour class! Since I am paid only for actual teaching time, it just isn’t a worthwhile use of my time. I also do not get paid for preparation time, which can take hours. Last week I had 21 teaching hours but actually put in about 46 hours including prep time and travel time.
I am building up to a full schedule but I am not there yet. Added to that is the propensity for cancellations. My students work for international companies and some of them travel quite often. Naturally, if a class is canceled, I do not get paid for it. Nor for holidays, and there are quite a few here. This week we had Easter Monday off, then I have three cancellations, leaving me with only 7 ½ teaching hours! Earnings-wise, not so great. On the other hand, it does give me time to go and deal with the French bureaucracy for health coverage…but that is another subject for another post. :)
Until then, au revoir!