a new brand of teaching

by Myla on August 20, 2010

I decided to quit teaching a few months before I got married and the very reason to that was because my husband’s job doesn’t allow us to stay in one place long enough for me have a steady teaching job. No school director in his or her right mind would like to hire a teacher who disappears every three months.  I decided to quit instead of getting short term teaching stints one after the other because of all the hassles and because that will not look good on my CV.

But that doesn’t mean I gave up earning money. I, of course, could but I didn’t want to so I looked for ways to earn money from home. I tried my hands on writing and online tutoring at the same time. I signed up at different websites that have pay-to-blog schemes and at online tutoring websites.  Earning money from writing happened first so I focused on it. For years, I’ve been doing it and I’m happy with the results. The online tutoring is a different story. I made teacher profiles in different online tutoring sites but I never got a client. Not one.  So, I forgot about it over time.

Last month, I got a nice surprise. Something I badly need to get me through this career crisis. Buddyschool.com sent me an email telling me that a client wants to schedule an online lesson with me. I was immediately thrilled at the idea of teaching online. I have never done it before but how difficult could it be? So I accepted the schedule and prepared for it.

My first online student is a six years old girl from Czech Republic. She can already speak a bit of English and her parents like to help her cultivate her English skills by hiring an online tutor for her. The first lesson went well and it was easy. K is a bright and talkative girl. I showed her stuffed animals I had prepared before the lesson and she told me what she knows about them. I felt that it was not a problem for K to warm up to me because she was also asking me questions.  I can just tell that K enjoyed the lesson and I enjoyed it too. A week later, K’s mom scheduled another lesson but I declined because of our holiday plans.

I thought that’s it. I thought that it will just be a onetime thing but when I got another request for a lesson yesterday, I was so thrilled.

Now, this got me thinking… if I get really unhappy with my teaching job I could quit it and focus on online tutoring.  What do you think? Go or no go?

{ 2 comments }

crisis

by MylaAugust 3, 2010

I got my teaching job last summer and I remember quite well how I wished the summer would end soon so I can already start teaching. Haha. That was a year ago. Right now, I wish the summer would stretch longer so I don’t have to go to work soon. I still have a month [...]

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the complaint

by MylaJune 29, 2010

All of the teachers in the learning center where I work experienced some sort of complaints already and about two months ago, I also got my share.
The complaint was: I don’t have a British accent.
It was coming from a grandmother who sat twice in my class to observe me. Normally, children ages 5 and above [...]

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the next step

by MylaJune 13, 2010

In my last post, I expressed the negative feelings I have towards my job and until now I still have those feelings but I decided to something about it.
Teachers here in Austria are paid well. They have very good benefits and very comfortable work conditions. I want that for myself too but that means I [...]

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the problem with my job

by MylaApril 12, 2010

I am going to whine and I hope this is the last time.
Semester break and Easter week came and went but I don’t feel like I’ve had a break from work for months (I would say years but I only started working last September).
Honestly speaking, I am tired and I feel like giving up some [...]

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this year will be a very busy year

by MylaJanuary 27, 2010

I haven’t updated this blog for more than a month and based on how things look like at the moment, posts will be scarce for the following months.
Remember when I told you that I have 10 groups each week? Well, that changed on the second week of this month. I now have 15 groups. One [...]

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salute to efren piñaflorida!

by MylaDecember 13, 2009

I would, of course, quote my source if I could remember where I got it but unfortunately, I can only be sure that it is from one of the innumerable blogs I came across with. I normally take note of nicely written, powerful, amusing, or interesting lines from the blogs, books, magazine, and newspapers I [...]

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let them take responsibility

by MylaNovember 24, 2009

When I was younger, I often hear older people say “kids are different these days”  and that always connotes something negative. Now that I am an adult, I also have the same opinion on children of today– they are quite different from how we were. And yes, I also mean that in a negative way.
Back [...]

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are you a native speaker?

by MylaNovember 4, 2009

Many Filipinos, although they had an English subject at school, still can’t really express themselves in English. I think the reason to this is because they didn’t have the chance or were not encouraged to talk in English.
Give an ordinary Filipino an English text and he will be able to read and comprehend all of [...]

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sorry for my lack of updates

by MylaOctober 27, 2009

I was busy.
That’s so lame but that’s true.
Teaching again after a two-year break is not easy and I am working hard to get my mojo back.
Back then lesson planning was much much more simple. I needed not to try so hard to whack my brain for class activities to do. Now, I have to exert [...]

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waterloo: names

by MylaOctober 8, 2009

I admit I am not good with names.
During my practicum in the Philippines and during my one year teaching stint in China, I didn’t bother remembering the names of all my pupils. Having 50 children in a class and having at least four classes a day made it almost impossible to remember everybody. I believe [...]

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