I have really enjoyed reading all the responses to Vicky Loras’s latest blog challenge so I have plucked up the courage and yes, Vicky, here is my story.
I think it counts as my very first real blog post and I wanted that one to be for you.
My story is a long one, as I have been teaching for 31 years but it’s a simple story as teaching is all I have ever done.
I have wanted to be a teacher for as long as I can remember. From the first days I went to school as a little girl, I was fascinated by my teachers. In the early 60s most women were just “mothers” so those ladies who were my teachers were really special and I wanted to be like them. Wearing my mother’s high heels, I played “school”. On my little blackboard I wrote what I had learnt that day, explaining everything to my imaginary pupils for whom I made homework sheets with mistakes so that I could “correct” them afterwards with my red penJ
Later on, in my teens, I had some real role models at school, language teachers who introduced me to literature, movies, ideas and ideals that would shape my personality and my future.
My love for English and England (only later did I learn about the UK) must have started when I was about 6. My sister, who is 8 years older, had her first English lessons at secondary school. She loved it instantly and taught me my first English words. She told me about that foreign country where girls were called “Winifred”. She gave me some red sweets, told me that was “lunch” and then we played “queen”, waving from our first floor window to our brothers in the garden J I distinctly remember she made me repeat the (very difficult!) word “refrigerator” over and over again and I loved it! These days people believe textbooks and modern ELT course material (if we may still use any ;-) ) should not use too many cultural references but I can say that culture did work for me. Getting to know the country, its people and their culture (yes, what do the English have for breakfast e.g.) was in fact my most important motivator. Frankly, I cannot imagine learning a language and not wanting to know a lot about the (a) country where they speak it as a mother tongue. Before I had spoken the first word to a native speaker, before I had set foot in a country where they spoke English, I read English novels, I sang in English (my sister was a Beatles fan!), I watched TV programmes in English and gradually turned into what they call an Anglophile or Britophile.
At 18 I went to Leuven University to study Dutch and English literature and linguistics. The Masters diploma automatically gives you access to the teaching profession in Belgium. After a few extra didactics and pedagogy courses and some supervised lessons I started teaching full time at the age of 22. Employment was scarce those days so in the first year I was a substitute teacher in two schools, one of which was an all male boarding school, no girls, no other female teachersJ In at the deep end.
In 1980 I got a full time position in a secondary school as a teacher of drama, Dutch and some English.
I loved my teenage pupils with whom we did a school play every year. I taught many different classes of all levels. I learnt the trade.
In 1985 I got the opportunity to start teaching Business English at a college of higher education, a university college as we call it now in Belgium. I had always been very happy at my secondary school but the prospect of teaching only English made me decide to take the plunge. No more general English and literature. I had to leave the comfort zone. I did not know the first thing about marketing, accountancy, logistics or finance. I had never worked in a company and the world of business did not really appeal to me at first but I was willing to learn and more importantly: what I considered essential in my profession would not change and has not changed to this day. I still love working with young people, helping them to acquire the language skills that will open the world for them, enabling them to communicate professionally and in their personal lives. And that is what I have been doing for the last 26 years, in the same school. Maybe it is in the Flemish nature (we are not as adventurous as the British e.g) or maybe it’s just me. I know it does not sound very glamorous but I like to believe there is also some value in staying where you are, trying to make the best of it, changing from inside, reinventing your job and finding new and exciting things in familiar surroundings.
I believe we teachers have a fantastic job and my subject, English, is also my hobby and my passion. Sharing that with young people is (still) great. It has brought out the best in me and I hope in some of them as well.
Who could have thought that in the final years of my career I would find such a wonderful group of teachers/ colleagues on Twitter. What they mean to me and how they have changed me deserves a separate post.
I would like to conclude this far too long post with a story and a poem.
Besides being a teacher I was also the international coordinator of the Business Department for 10 years. This meant I was responsible for all Erasmus exchanges of students and teachers. When I gave up this job 4 years ago to become a full time teacher again most colleagues and friends did not understand that. They saw it as a “demotion”. I would lose that position, that title, I would have to give up the perks of the job (e.g. some trips abroad) and I would have to teach more hours again. I sent out a mail to all our international contacts to inform them of the change. Most replied wishing me “good luck”. From a Finnish partner, however, I got a mail saying CONGRATULATIONS (sic), indicating that teaching, just being a teacher, is in fact something to be proud of. It is. I am.
Gratitude to Old Teachers
When we stride or stroll across the frozen lake,
We place our feet where they have never been.
We walk upon the unwalked. But we are uneasy.
Who is down there but our old teachers?
Water that once could take no human weight-
We were students then- holds up our feet,
And goes on ahead of us for a mile.
Beneath us the teachers, and around us the stillness
Robert Bly (from Eating the Honey of Words,1999)
