G. Appolinaire

My teaching career defines me – it is who I am. You see, teaching is what I was born to do. When I come to work each day, I honestly feel as though every one of my talents and brain cells is being challenged in a way I can’t imagine to happen in any other job. I know, from deep inside, that what I do is important and valuable, even life changing. My own life and the lives of the children I teach develop every day in new and often surprising ways. Twenty-fife years has passed since I gave my first lesson – and I’m still a teacher and still in love with my profession.

When I entered the profession, I was only 23 and I was ready to face any challenge in the world. I loved my future students and was eager to share my knowledge with them. A three-storey newly built village school warmly welcomed a young red diploma specialist. However, from the first lessons I was confronted with a kind of apathy from the most part of my students. Yes, hey could read and translate those texts about boring to death Lena Stogova who has got four members in her family, lived in Moscow, got up at seven o’clock and every summer went to the camp and then to her granny’s. But when it came to disputing, they could successfully do with a single sentence in response or with immortal “Yes, I do”, “No, I don’t”. So, my first task was to help them enjoy communication. Looking back to those far-away 80s, I have never ceased wondering how I managed to do it practically without any authentic materials we have nowadays – videos, cassettes, colourful coursebooks of British publishing houses, without the Internet. But I have always been persistent in reaching my aims, and I genuinely wanted to transmit my love for English to my students. Once and again I looked through methodological books and magazines trying to find that “wand” that could charm them by the wonderful world of English. I tried different techniques – with varying success, until I found out that role-playing enjoyed the greatest popularity among my students. When I was an elementary student, I used to dream of being an actress. I even attended a drama club, and my teacher told my mum that I was a promising student. It appeared to be that nothing was gone with a wind, and I’m still happily combining teaching and acting. It’s such a fun for kids to communicate in English not only with each other or their teacher, but with Fortune-teller, Main Witch or even with the State of Liberty. I can become and old lady who is afraid of big cities and can’t find her way, or an impetuous tourist who’d like to spend her vacation on a desert island… my students eventually got used to role-playing and invented their own images for conveying their thoughts. As Gail Godwin said: “Good teaching is one-fourth of preparation and three-fourths of theatre”.

A lot of water has flowed under the bridge since then. I changed schools, became a national winner of TEA programme and spent two months studying in Montana State University in the USA. I am a teacher-methodologist now and I have some publications in professional editions, but I still enjoy interactions with students and get thrilled helping them experience an “a-ha!” moment. Being a young teacher I envied my experienced colleagues: I thought they had already known everything about teaching English and didn’t spend much time preparing for their lessons. For present day, I spend long evening hours and half the night thinking over every minute of my next-day lessons to involve my students into learning English, to arise steady interest to my favourite subject, because to my emphatic opinion, teachers who cannot keep students involved and excited in the classroom should not be there!

Teaching is the acquisition, assimilation, and articulation of knowledge. Just as the mother bird hunts for food, shews it up, then spit it into the mouths of the young, we, teachers, search for knowledge, synthesise it, then present it to students in a more palatable form. Besides, we should constantly look for new ways to present old material. Personally I think that one of the most damaging phrases in teaching is “It’s always been done that way”, and I consider the idea of continuous learning to be of great importance. That’s why I take part in numerous professional development seminars and I am always open to everything new.

If you throw a stone in a pond, the ripples go on and on until they reach the shore. You can’t have ripples without a “stone”. Good teachers throw stones that make a positive difference, and that’s what I strive to do. I make lots of eye contact. I smile a lot. I exude enormous levels of energy. I jump and move and use my hands and slide and point and encourage participation. I play the guitar and sing songs. I have fun. I teach the students, not the material. In my case, teaching is more than an occupation. It’s my way of life.

So why do teachers do it? Why do they devote long and often unpaid hours to class planning, paper correcting, and impromptu students counselling? Cynics have said that there are only three good reasons to be a teacher: June, July and August. But the vast majority of teachers barely notice their summer vacation. They’re too busy preparing to do an even better job the next school year. The truth is, great teachers have a beautiful and mysterious calling. They undertake the job of inspiring children and providing the tools they need to master our complex world. Why? Because they believe that education liberates the individual. It explains the society we live in and helps create a better one. It is the foundation of freedom and the portal to a life full of challenge, community spirit, and, most important of all, meaning. And I fully agree with the American teacher Christa McAuliffe who said, “I touch the future. I teach”.