9. Teaching as a profession

Some would say that education, experience and the overall knowledge of the subject are the key traits of a good teacher. Such teacher has an outstanding ability to get you interested in what she/he teaches, drag you into the process of learning, make you truly want to attend classes, solve problems and forget about lunch breaks. This ability to capture the imagination, to make an individual want to learn, that is a making of a good teacher.

I consider that a good teacher should possess a number of necessary skills and features of character: the excellent knowledge of pedagogical principals and methods and psychological peculiarities of development of people of different ages should be combined with excellent knowledge of English. Also for a teacher is very important to love his subject and to be interested in its scientific development, not consider it only as a business for money earning. And at last the most significant thing for the profession is personal features of character that can help person to become a good teacher or prevent from doing this: the endless love to people and children, patience, sympathy (отзывчивость), kindness, sometimes rigidity (жёсткость) and inflexibility (несгибаемость), the sense of responsibility for others people and for their future, the interest in everything, not the sense of indifference etc.

The profession of a teacher is not an easy one, it’s one of the most difficult professions because you take a great responsibility for the future of your students not only in teaching but also in upbringing, it’s the responsibility for the future generation. The teacher of the 21 century is the comprehensively developed individuality well grounding (хорошо подкованный) in all fields and ready to speak and discuss them.I personally would like to try working in some courses or school. I`d like to be interesting to my students; that`ll give me professional success.

As you understand I’ve seen a lot of teachers and I know really good; the change of teachers is not bad, it gives the possibility to compare, to see the different styles and methods of teaching. In my opinion the most important feature of the model teacher is exactingness (требовательность). In order to learn the language person should make a huge work and it’s important to find methods to stimulate the activity and to maintain the interest and intensive work.

Graduating of a Language Teaching Department and ready to try yourself in the field you have the possibility to find work at state or private schools or in the institute, to teach at some foreign courses and to combine this with private lessons or choose other professions associated with languages such as an interpreter. There are a lot of possibilities and in fact there is only one reef – lack of experience, but it’s easy to change. Also there is a possibility to find work abroad, but for teaching language abroad necessary to continue education and get some certificates abroad. So all ways are open – the only task is to choose and try to choose the right one. I hope that I will manage to find the interesting position after my graduating and I will find it in the field of teaching.

About perspectives for a Russian EFL teacher to find a job abroad - I think it`s possible, however, a potential EFL teacher must be prepared to be downgraded to an ESL teacher for at least a few starting years of his/her career abroad. As well as that one must keep in mind that he/she should apply to international schools with a large percentage of students from Eastern Europe (former soviet states preferably).

The profession of an English teacher reveals a number of features that are necessary in our life, the pedagogical and psychological knowledge help in communication and dealing with people, the knowledge of foreign languages opens endless possibilities for hobbies, interests and occupations, for instance, the interpreting, translation or using language in some other profession combing it with economy, management, jurisprudence, technical education so on and so forth, working in foreign department of some corporations.