a teacher
How do you define the job?
Imagine a student who grew up playing video games with English speakers and thinks there is nothing left to learn. Now imagine a student who can’t string more than a few words together. For me, being a college ESL teacher means helping the first student set new goals so that he or she can attain new levels of accuracy and nuance, and it means helping the second student discover new levels of confidence and fluency so that he or she can engage with the English-speaking community in new ways.
How many years of experience have you had in education?
I started teaching English when I was 18 years old. I taught a Japanese martial artist visiting Montreal during his gap year. But it wasn't until 1995 that that I got my first job teaching overseas. In total, I taught in Korea for 5 years, at a language institute from 1995 to 1997 and then at two universities from 2002 until 2005. At the college level in and around Montreal, I have taught college ESL for about 17 years. But I have been working at my current college for just 13 years.
Describe your prior experience as a teacher?
I started working as a teacher doing private lessons, but that didn't last long. Otherwise, I have taught at language schools in Quebec, B.C, and abroad. I have also taught at universities in Canada and South Korea. But most of my experience has been teaching in and around Montreal at various the junior colleges.
What was your earliest work experience?
My first job was delivering newspapers in my neighbourhood. I always knew that if you wanted money in your pocket, you had to work for it. So, I got myself two paper routes, and every morning before school, I delivered 70 newspapers in the next neighbourhood to mine.
How did you motivate an underperforming team to achieve its goals?
The clearest example I can think of is a group project I had to do with classmates. We met, set tasks for ourselves and planned to meet the following week to share what we had accomplished. When we met, I was the only one to have met the goals we had set. We agreed to meet on the weekend. I realized that the best way to motivate the group was to lead by example, so I worked day and night to produce my best and most complete section of the project. When we met again and they saw how much work I had done, they realized that the presentation was going to look lopsided. That inspired them buckled down and get the work done. In the end, my hard work early in the development cycle inspired my teammates to work harder and get the job done. Our team scored the highest of all of the teams that present that semester.
income potential
How much could I potentially make if I applied myself?
