Teacher Stories: Stories from the Edges of Language Teaching Read online

  The milk bottle is one of the few mementoes I still have of my two years learning how to teach in Leipzig. It stands on a filing cabinet in my study. It is unique, as bottles of this size and shape are no longer produced.

  Make the Most of Your Days

  Paul Walsh

  15 Nov 2006

  The EFL party continues. My little buddy here woke up two days ago (after all night in the all-night pub) with a woman in his bed who didn't speak a word of English. He remembers her vomiting but doesn't know where he met her.

  Good man.

  Joe

  9 Mar 2007

  What's up? Spring, sunny days, blue skies here. The non-stop pub is our latest hanging out place. A real dive. All the winos are in there, and the EFL teachers. This business really is the biggest SCAM imaginable. Long may it continue.

  One teenage group coming up, not the worst of the bunch but still annoying. One of the little thirteen-year-olds in my class yesterday, seriously pissed off at having lost the game we had been playing, looked across at the other team and, forgetting where he was, shouted: FUCKERS!

  Okay, it's Friday night and pay day which equals PUB.

  Joe

 

  ***

  I had just completed a four-week Teaching English as a Foreign Language course in Krakow—then the cheapest course in Europe. After kicking around Krakow for a month, desperation beckoned: I was running out of money, living off a diet of packet soup and frozen pierogi. A school in Debica (meaning place of oak trees and pronounced ‘Dem-beets-a’) offered me my first teaching job and I was grateful; my only other option being a shameful re-entry into a career of long-term unemployment.

  I boarded the blue-white train leaving Krakow full of hope. It was a long, hot journey, and as I was meeting a representative of the school at the other end, obviously libation-free. After some time, my Mecca approached. With two rucksacks on my back, a small, half-full plastic bag in my hand, I began heaving my suitcase along the narrow train corridor, cursing Eastern Europe’s narrow train corridors. I squared up to the red exit door breathless, wondering how to open this mass of Silesian metal. The door, and the Polish words written on the door, revealed little—but I had been on trains before—therefore, no problem. We cantered into Debica and poking my free arm out of the tiny window I began janking the door handle furiously in both directions. Wait! Something clicked. A pale elderly couple, arm-in-arm, gazed at me as I passed by; the door sprang open and I fell out onto the warm concrete of a blue-yellow, small-town Polish train station, closely followed by my luggage, the plastic bag fluttering in the breeze. Other passengers disembarked and walked around me—a small child pointed and yelped: ‘Duze okulary!’ (translation: ‘Big glasses!’)

  Gathering myself in the train station car park, embarrassed but also thrilled by the prospect of a job and a regular wage, I waited. Ten minutes. Fifteen minutes. I was getting nervous. Just then in the distance a blur of English words flashed by. A yellow hatchback braked, turned and raced across the asphalt towards me; car—tiger, me—antelope. The car skidded to a stop, and I peered at the words across the side of the car: English Fist – Opening up a Wold of Opportunity! The gap between door and car body had swallowed up the two Rs, and was about to swallow me too.

  A small blonde-haired woman wearing large, black, shiny sunglasses rolled down the window in a few quick jerks, threw a cigarette onto the pavement, and turned to face me.

  “You are Paul, yes? Agnieszka. Put your stuff in behind. We will go to flat first, then school.”

  My head flew back as we zoomed away. I held onto my seat. We turned right and as we passed the yellow Market Hall, I asked Agnieszka about the town. Pushing back her sunglasses with her forefinger she said:

  “Zadupie! That’s what we call it—in Polish: ‘ass-town, shithole’. There’s nothing to do here. You want a cigarette? Light me too please.”

  She pointed to below the radio. I reached down and pulled a cigarette out of a glossy white packet; lit one and passed to her; lit myself another and took a slow drag.

  “But there are other English teachers...we hang out. There is Joe—you will meet him. He is crazy, like all native speakers...[her voice went flat]...all behave like dogs...and maybe YOU too.”

  She paused and glanced over at me.

  “Just JOKING!!!”

  Her laugh met the roar of the engine and we accelerated across Debica’s one mini-roundabout, speeding towards my future life. Giggling.

  ***

  23 Aug 2007

  Hey there, found a job yet? In Glasgow, working in a call centre, about to end a week on Friday. Hellish—easily the worst job I've ever had. Good morning, Joe speaking, how may I help you? Aaaaahhhhh. I don't know how anyone can stick it. My team leader told me my calls were on average SEVEN SECONDS too long!!!

  Send some news...

  Joe

  2 Sep 2007

  Hi buddy,

  Still in the dreaded call centre but only one week to go. Two little dudes sitting beside me were drinking quarter bottles of vodka they had cunningly poured into Fanta bottles the other morning. Good one. I've got my new flat sorted in Poland (with satellite tv) and it'll be interesting to see who the new cunt is.

  Joe

  ***

  I first met Joe at the tyre factory. He had a small frame, close-shaven hair, looked around fifty. The lit roll-up poking out of his mouth seemed incongruous compared with what he was wearing: checked, crease-free shirt and thin, blue mackintosh. He was leaning forward, his elbows resting on the metal railings; he half-turned to face me as I got near, giving me a stern look. Tense, unmoving, thin lips.

  “So you’re the new cunt, then. Welcome to Shit-river—don’t let teaching at the tyre factory go to your head!” he said in a warm Glasgow burr, laughing and extending his hand. I felt better; Joe tended to cackle when he laughed, which was extremely funny—you could see all the teeth in his mouth, which wasn’t many.

  Shit-river was our affectionate name for Debica, an outpost of the Polish ELT world, and we formed a small part of the shoal of teachers then swimming in the clear blue waters of an expanding industry.

  This was my first meeting with Joe and, after I left in the summer of 2006, the start of a conversation lasting several years.

  ***

  4th April 2013

  Still here and not sure what the next move will be. I've quit my job, actually finishing in three weeks. My boss says he doesn't have enough hours for me because he wants to hire younger and cheaper Polish teachers. I'm keeping my flat here until the 1st of September, after that I don't know. Could be Russia. Could even be freelance in Poland, the main problem is the national insurance thing, if you're freelance you must pay it.

  Final few weeks mean watching a lot of videos with the kids and going to the park. Adult groups go to the pub.

  Joe

  24th September 2013

  Hello buddy,

  Any plans for the new school year? No fucking new school year for me. Got back to UK on 1st September, two days later I was in hospital. Cirrhosis of the liver, not a great shock. The ward was hellish. Grown up men walking about in nappies. A sorry collection of alcoholics and junkies.

  A fairly respectable-looking guy asked me one day: do you know how I can become a professional actor? The fucking loony bin. Every one of them was a deep yellow, except me. Kept me in for ten days, now staying at my mum's because I mainly sleep all the time. They said three months minimum in terms of beginning to recover.

  Hope things are fine for you

  Joe

  29th September 2013

  Hey buddy,

  Thanks for writing. I'm just sick, lying in bed, no energy, hospital and clinic visits, they're talking about three months minimum recovery time. I'm eating like crazy, which is good, but haven't gained an ounce. The bones on my face are all sticking out. I've been off the booze for six or seven weeks which is only the beginning.

/>   A mate of mine just started a job teaching in Istanbul. On the second day he said to the DoS: I don't really understand my timetable. Does it mean four classes each day, or five. Yes, the guy said. Yes four, or yes five. Yes. So I've got four every day. Yes. And finally, so that's five. Yes.

  Good luck to you mate and keep in touch.

  Joe

  20th November 2013

  Hi,

  This is Celine - Joe's daughter. I found your email address on his computer - I hope you don't mind me contacting you. Joe died yesterday morning - alcoholic liver disease. The funeral is next Tuesday. If there is anyone else that you guys were friends with would you be able to tell them what's happened.

  Thanks,

  Celine

  ***

  Joe lived rough in Paris for several years in the 80s, but also had a M.A. in Literature from Glasgow University and would quote Joyce, Beckett, and his favourite writer Céline (“Life is a classroom and Boredom's the usher...”) from memory. He—like a lot of us, drank too much: but not without reason.

  Nights of laughter and vodka toasts clutching tiny brown cups dancing to the hip-hop tapes sent by his daughter; the camaraderie of friends—with Joe centre-stage, grinning wildly, directing his own private circus; the snow-filled quiet streets. All this rekindled something inside me—this spark becoming a strong, protective core—like the slow, definite rings of an oak tree. I left Debica re-sensitized: pulsing more than reasoning.

 

  But I didn’t go to Joe’s funeral in Glasgow. I couldn’t rearrange my classes, I was short on money, it was a long way to go—there are more excuses. I’m angry at my own laziness; at a profession where the call to witness births, weddings and funerals provokes second thoughts; at a world where friendship and family sometimes lag behind career and next month’s rent.

  But most of all, I’m sad that I can’t sit down with an old friend and talk about books and life with moonlight coming in through the kitchen window—and share one last toast.

  This story is an apology and tribute to my friend Joe Morin.

  Who I miss very much.

  You should try to make the most of your days

  That’s what people say

  You should try to make the most of your days

  But I’ve never really known how to (in any proper way)

  The Funny Waves - Make The Most Of Your Days (I've never known how to..)

  Lyrics: Joe Morin, 2012.

  Creative Leadership

  Mohammed Qaid

  "Look, your English is good. BUT that is not enough,” the Principal said while scratching his bushy goatee, causing that insufferable noise.

  "I may give you a car, you can crash it, I can give you a computer, you may smash it. But I can't afford to give you students' minds to ruin them."

  As Principal and owner of the Language Institute, he decided to grant me the chance to teach at his Institute even though I had not had any teaching experience before. I thought he was the epitome of wisdom. I left his cramped office, just another room in a building that was designed to be anything but a language school, to meet the Level-One Teacher and the Secretary. I told them both how the interview inspired me. The Level-One Teacher mumbled while the Secretary started a long tirade about how we did things and about our mission, our vision and all that.

  Two weeks later, I was disenchanted. I got into the eternal predicament of having to be strict or risk loss of control of a class. I did an ancient trick, which is to single out the major merrymaker and take action before the party gets wild. The main agitator was a girl, and I told her gently but firmly, if such a thing is ever possible, that she should quit causing chaos. She left the class immediately and headed straight to the Principal's office to protest. She told him what I did was not fair because "she wasn't the only one talking".

  "I don’t think you handled the matter discreetly, Mohammed. You should have been very subtle and smart about it," the Principal began.

  "I did every trick in the book. If I didn't do what I did, you would have the rest of the class right here complaining about the lack of discipline."

  "Still, you should have been very gentle," his sturdy body shaking as he was stressing the point.

  "If you wanted me to babysit, that is not going to happen." I started to lose my temper.

  "I'd babysit the students; I'd even do their laundry if I had to. This place is run by the cash coming out of their pockets."

  I do not remember how that argument was concluded. I just never took my boss seriously after that. To my subconscious, he was no more associated with protecting students' minds, but with doing their laundry.

  We used to organize a simple event at the end of each course. It was usually attended by teachers, students from other classes and of course by the Principal. It is worth mentioning that he majored at some branch of mathematics at college. It was the hardest branch of mathematics, according to him. Everything was going well during the ceremony until he decided to throw a little speech in English towards the end of the ceremony. The forty five year old Principal stood there, very confident with his dark red suit on.

  "Ladies and Gentleman. As the Dean of this Institute, I am very happy to see every people here…."

  My conscience as an ESL teacher stops me from transcribing the rest of the speech. The Level-One Teacher looked at me and said: "Now that's somebody who cares about students' minds." When it was all over, a mischievous student came up, you know that type who likes to make fun of everybody all the time. He told the Principal that he made several grammatical mistakes during the speech. The accused smiled and retorted confidently:

  "Of course I did. I did that on purpose. I wanted to motivate the students. Those who make mistakes will be encouraged to speak when they see that even the Principal makes mistakes."

  The funny student was speechless. I don’t think he ever tried to be funny again.

  I was about to leave the academy after a long, laborious day when I saw the Level-One Teacher standing next to the staircase murmuring something to himself. I asked what the matter was. He looked around as if trying to make sure nobody was listening.

  "Listen man. Our boss is losing it..."

  I reckoned somebody else was the one losing it.

  "...a test was scheduled this morning but the copy machine was out of order. I asked the Principal if I should postpone it. I told him I could write the questions on the board but wasn't sure if it was a good idea. He said it wasn't perfect but it’s better than putting off the whole test. So, I went on with plan B. After the test, the Head Tutor, who was in charge of monitoring our performance, told the Principal that writing the test on the board wasn't such an effective method. The boss was fuming and gave me an earful in front of the Head Tutor. I reminded him that we'd had a discussion about it and that he approved it. He said: "I was only testing you to see if you would do the right thing. Unfortunately you failed miserably."

  Before I was able to comfort my bewildered colleague, a tall student with a cap intervened out of the blue. He was yelling at an invisible entity.

  "This place is a scam. They are ripping people off."

  "Calm down and tell me what is going on," I inquired.

  "Well, I was robbed in broad daylight…Upon registration, the Principal convinced me to pay an additional fee to get a coloured book instead of the dull black-and-white version. I was convinced and paid. He handed me a black-and-white copy and promised me that coloured books were on their way. Three weeks have passed, two weeks left to the end of the course, and I haven't received a book nor a refund."

  I tried to discuss the problem further with the student while the Level-One Teacher was busy checking that no one was spying. The student left as the Secretary showed up, her long eyelashes fluttering like little wings. She pointed at both of us and said with the enthusiasm only secretaries and patriots can display:

  "Shame on you two! That boy was hammering the organization you are working for and you w
ere listening with tight lips…"

  "Aaah, I was just trying to figure out what…"

  "Anyway, have any of you seen the DVD player? A teacher handed it back to me at the front desk while I was busy registering a new student. When I was done, I couldn't find it."

  We both answered negatively. She was disappointed and whimpered about the potential deduction from her meagre pay if she didn’t find the device.

  Next day, the Secretary herself was nowhere to be found. It was a mess without her. I managed to get her number and called to see if she was fine. As soon as she heard my voice, she broke into sobs.

  "He…he had it all th…the time."

  "Who had what?"

  "The Principal…had the DVD player all day. He saw I was too busy so he took it and hid it in his office….I was looking for it all day. I even stayed an hour longer in the evening. And…and at the end, he just brought it back and told me he did this so I’d watch out next time. He said it could be stolen if I kept being so careless. What kind of person is he! How could he d-d-do this to me! I am not going to that place anymore!" She kept weeping, and I was certain her long eyelashes must have stuck together with all the tears.