Hastings

Matt Bryden

The TEFL challenge

It was the first time I had really taken on a challenge since drifting through my English degree in poor circumstances and doing worse than I was capable of doing. I had found my teaching-legs, as it were, in the third week of four, which was relatively late in the day and I remember, before that 'click' came, sitting on a fence one evening and staring into empty fields at a loss how to proceed. I found the course stimulating and I understood the theory but applying it was proving difficult. A kind of observatory shyness prevented me from interrupting a lesson which had a problem and correcting it. On one occasion I spent all night preparing fantastic handouts and then did not use them.

Eventually though, after a kind of routine was established through observing professional teachers and thinking about teaching 24:7, the classroom became less foreign, and less nerve-wracking, and I got to work. On the last night, going for drinks and a celebratory meal, my exhaustion was such that I was unable to remember the pin numbers of either of my cash cards. It was also the night Johnny Cash died, I remember discovering on my return home.

Towards the end of the course

One student in my group had had a meltdown after losing his last safety net with one lesson left to teach, but somehow rallied in the final lesson and passed; another student failed her last lesson, and the course, after too many sleepless hours and too much coffee had left her below her best. An affable but controlling American and a sweet teacher from Kazakhstan, who gave me a bottle of Kazakhstan wine for checking the spelling in her assignments, were also members of our group.

The job search

My problems were not solved with passing the course however. I now had to get out of my parents' house (and Ashford) and get work quickly, having paid £800 for the course and spent a month without earning a penny. I scoured www.tefl.com for jobs and it was packed with immediate-start, flight-paid trips to Mauritius, Tokyo and the rest of the world; very attractive offers, but I needed a job in London where my partner lived. Before one of her weekend visits, midway through the course, my parents acted like disapproving guardians, strongly advising me to rethink this potentially catastrophic diversion from the course. That visit was what I remembered when I was feeling the pressure.

I found an online list of London colleges and telephoned them one by one. I bluffed that I had five years' teaching experience (which was a truth of sorts, I had taught English literature and Creative Writing in York), and time after time was turned down. It was a bad time for recruiting, as most terms were already underway. However, several took my contact details. On phoning one college towards noon 1 recognized the acoustics of the phone-line from a call I had made several minutes earlier and the same voice answered at the end of the line. I stuck to my spiel: 'My name's Matt Bryden, a qualified EFL teacher looking for work in London.' My luck was in. In the intervening minutes someone had called in sick. Could I be in Greenwich at 2.30? Of course I could.

I got lucky!

I phoned a cab, put on a suit and made the Ashford to London train-journey anxiously reading my bulging course folder from Hastings. I arrived with fifteen minutes to spare in which I sat in the staff-room and anxiously prepared an ad hoc lesson from their library of exercises and activities. Equipped with a photo of my sister holding a baby, a photo of my cat and a photo of my brother on a beach in Madrid with his girlfriend I proceeded to talk to the students about myself and themselves. They were advanced students who didn't want to do any games. Adrenalin carried the day. I collected my cash (which barely covered the ticket there and back) and was pleased to be called at 9am the next day and told the teacher was still sick, could I come in again? I said yes, called the cab and this time had more time to prepare. My foot was in the door. I was asked to complete the week, and then the next.

And then what...?

Of course, one lesson a day is not enough to pay the rent, and I was also in the process of scouting for a flat in London. No one at college knew I was travelling so far each day. In the job-centre in Ashford I found an advert for another college in Greenwich and followed it up. I arrived at the interview straight from teaching down the road, wearing a suit and in a teaching frame of mind. I felt and looked like a teacher. It was a new college and in accepting the job I became Head of English. I had the good luck to be teaching from elementary level up, getting a grip of the grammar as I went along, and now have one other teacher under me.

I have since found work in a management college in Greenwich where I invigilate examinations, proofread assignments and teach a ten week academic foundation programme consisting of grammar and report-writing skills, which I designed myself. This month I started teaching two new English courses for Lewisham council as well as a creative writing course. Getting the jobs was easy since I was qualified and experienced. It has been a question of progressing step by step.

What TEFL did for me

From a personal perspective, my confidence has grown immeasurably since starting teaching. I am more organized and more confident in presenting myself in general. For all the times I have been exhausted or frustrated with students arriving late, I have never regretted taking the course or wished to be back temping. Having experience of being a teacher and a student I make sure to support other teachers and students as much as I can. Seeing how vulnerable students are to homesickness, exploitative landlords and the like, I know it is important the classroom is a place of fun, understanding and respite.

The stimulating classroom environment has brought a great richness to my life, and I have met many interesting students. There is lots of laughter in the classroom. My tutor at Hastings told me that if I didn't enjoy the students then I was in the wrong job. This is true. I have been moved to cry with laughter at times, most noticeably when escorting a class around a Tintin exhibition. One student, from Poland, was baffled: 'You like him? But he is always in trouble', was her response. I have met wonderful people and learnt interesting facts about other cultures. This year, as every year, they will be eating fish in Poland at Christmas and going door to door singing carols. I got to cheer on a wide number of international teams during Euro 2004, in which The Czech Republic shone, as well as rub it in when England (occasionally) come out on top. I have been invited to a host of other countries.

A bit of advice

One thing I was taught in Hastings was always to wear my 'giraffe ears', to listen very carefully to what goes on around me, not to miss the whispered answer from the shiest Nepalese student. This has served me well as a writer too, and the creativity and stimulus of my job sit side by side with my desire to live an independent and interesting life in which I am myself.

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'According to Plan' - read this poem by Matt Bryden