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1. First few years will be extremely stressful and you will feel like giving it up a million times. Just keep on working hard and believing in yourself! Good routine and establishing a great structured class are abilities you won’t obtain overnight.

2. Unsuccessful classes are inevitable. Even when you’re experienced and skilled. We’re human beings, prone to making mistakes, being emotional and having doubts. Don’t beat yourself up over it, learn from your failures and move on.

3. Save all the materials, activities, ideas, books, worksheets: use clouds, drives, USBs, your laptop or anything else, but do not waste your effort and time spent on researching and creating new stuff. It might seem useless to you now, but, trust me, you will highly appreciate it in the future.

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There have been quite a few posts on the topic lately so I suppose this has truly become a world-wide issue. It truly IS extremely difficult to maintain the same level of energy and excitement when all you want to do after a few classes is to stretch your legs in bed, watch stupid TV shows and eat junk food. I’m rather sure that most teachers come across such an issue at one point or another in their life and even start considering changing their career path. If you are a great teacher, I definitely do not want the world to be deprived of such a talented educator, so let’s look into what you can do to keep your spirits high!

1. First alteration that helps me a lot is swapping the roles and becoming a student yourself. Take up crafts classes, start learning a new language or, finally, learn to bake delicious desserts. Being on the other side of the classroom for a change might boost up your inspiration and let you feel that somebody else is responsible for your knowledge.

2. Finding a new place to work at. Going to the same school and preparing for the classes in your kitchen can get very dull and monotonous. However, drinking your favorite Latte and enjoying a nice cozy coffee shop atmosphere can make a huge difference. I allow myself this privilege at least a few times a week and I can assure you that focusing on your work in such places is so much easier. 

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“If people are failing, they look inept. If people are succeeding, they look strong and good and competent. That’s the ‘halo effect.’ Your first impression of a thing sets up your subsequent beliefs. If the company looks inept to you, you may assume everything else they do is inept.” © Daniel Kahneman

I believe this quote makes perfect sense. Of course, we cannot judge a person by his or her looks and base our opinion on our first encounter with them. However, teaching is a different story. It is essential to make a good first impression on your students especially if they are kids. You need to set your rules and expectations from the very beginning of your language journey together. You have to show them that you can be witty and easy-going laughing at your own mess-ups and firm and strict not allowing any misbehavior at the same time.

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This post has been long overdue and I’ve been putting it off till a better time and as usually it never seemed to come. The situation that happened to me a few weeks ago has evoked so many emotions inside of me that I am still feeling highly motivated to share this with you and my thoughts on the topic. Hopefully, my story will inspire you to believe in yourself and will shed some light on the injustice that many non-native speakers have to face.

Long story short, for the past 2 months I’ve been working for the company which is considered to be one of the leading ESL education providers in Vietnam. I’m more than satisfied with this job and can’t be more excited about the opportunity that has been given to me. The deal is that they claim to be hiring only 100% native speakers and as the company is a really serious one this statement is an actual truth as opposed to most schools in China which hire anybody with more or less decent English and then present them as Australians or Canadians. I can verify this by saying that all teachers that I’ve met in Hanoi (i.e. around 30-40 of them) so far are Americans, British, Irish, South Africans, Canadians and Australians with the only exception of one Dutch coach whose English is impeccable.

Why is this information important? I’m going to tell you in a bit. This little pre-story is essential for you to understand the whole drama of the situation fully so bear with me. 

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For many teachers and students the idea of having online classes is quite controversial. There are lots of pros and cons to it and that causes many debates. I have been teaching Skype lessons for over two years now and would like to share with you my experience. So let’s find out what’s so cool about “distance learning”!

1) First of all, you can have classes literally in any spot of this world as long as there is a good wi-fi connection. I know, it’s pretty obvious. However, it seems to me that some people don’t appreciate this chance enough! It means that you can choose your teachers/students from any country and do not have to stop the studying process whenever you are on the move. You have been dreaming of having some practice with native speakers but don’t know any in your city? Not a problem with Skype. Or maybe you are a teacher who wants to travel around the world and make a living at the same time? Also possible with Skype! 

Два месяца назад я таки осуществила свою недавнюю мечту по переезду из Китая во Вьетнам и ни разу об этом не пожалела с тех пор. Многие спрашивали почему я приняла такое решение, и какая страна мне нравится больше. Сегодня я на этом фокусироваться не буду, так как причины переезда многочисленные и в основном довольно личные, а два азиатских соседа, мне кажется, нет смысла сравнивать, так как они мне оба полюбились. По Китаю я периодически скучаю, и эта страна навсегда останется для меня вторым домом, так как столько воспоминаний, переживаний, изменений, эмоций и психологического роста я не испытывала, пожалуй, даже в своей родной России за 24 года. Но в этот раз я остановлю свое внимание на чуть менее знакомом для многих Вьетнаме и в особенности его столице Ханое. Поехали!

1) Начну я с того, что хоть и находится он совсем близко территориально, Вьетнам очень разнится с Китаем во многом. Поэтому, лично для меня, плюсом переезда была возможность окунуться в абсолютно новую для меня культуру и выйти из той зоны комфорта, в которой я начала зависать за полтора года жизни в Поднебесной. Здесь мне пришлось снова: учить слова из незнакомого языка, привыкать к особенностям общения с местными, знакомиться с новой кухней, узнавать в какие места можно поехать в свободное время, открывать для себя историю Вьетнама, подстраиваться под рабочий ритм жителей Ханоя и находить новых друзей. И это, я вам скажу, – прекрасно!

Вот так идешь на занятие, у тебя в блокноте план, а родители перед началом урока просят повторить числительные, которые дети изучают сейчас в школе, и по которым у них будет тест. У меня это случается часто, так как у моих детей английский в их китайской школе каждый день, есть еще репетитор, который готовит их к тестам. Только вот говорить их никто нигде не учит. Это задача моих уроков. Так что мне бывает не так важно, о чем мы будем сегодня говорить. Главное – говорить. Числительные – так числительные! Я люблю вот такие спонтанные задачи, это заставляет мозг работать на полную! Итак, что мы имеем?

Решила систематизировать все, что мы используем на уроках для изучения и повторения нашей лексики. Мне очень нравятся эти задания и игры. Во-первых, их можно использовать и для небольшой группы учеников и для моих классов по 55 человек. А во-вторых, подходит для любого уровня. Меняется только наполнение. Итак, поехали…

As requested before I came up with some reasons why teaching might be considered one of the hardest jobs on Earth. Here I present to you 8 drawbacks of being a teacher:

1) Freedom. Last time when I was describing how great it is to be a teacher I mentioned freedom as the first advantage. Well, this time it’s also gonna be a minus. Your free time is as flexible as your responsibilities as a teacher go. Sometimes your students would want to reschedule their classes to another time, which might be in the late evening or GOD FORBID in the very early morning.

I’ll probably start with real perks of teaching English. These are ten advantages of this job according to my experience:

1) Freedom. Most of the time we do have flexibility with our schedules. Whether you work for yourself or for a company you are most likely to have more freedom in your time preferences than people who work in the office.

2) Traveling. You can find a position in almost any corner of the world. If you are really good, you might even look for a job in native-speaking countries.