it is a good backup job for you that is for sure and I agree with the 1 to 2 hours a day. It would be nice if the students actually wanted to be there as well. In the jobs that I have had the students are forced to be there and many of them don't actually care about learning the language at all nor is there any incentive for them to do well in it since students are not allowed to fail in my school even though a lot of them, on a fair assessment, would do precisely that.
It made me chuckle a little bit when you said that you stuck around for 3 more years in order to repent for your previous damage done.
I TOTALLY agree with you about how they shouldn't have the degree requirements when they are paying peanuts. No person in their right mind is going to come over here with proper teaching certifications only to get paid 12-20 thousand USD per year.
You are probably a lot better choice for the job since you now speak Khmer. I am sure you already know that this is extremely rare in ESL circles.
Yeah, I definitely use my Khmer language skills as a shameless novelty. The kid classes were always exhausting cause most were forced to be there, so I had to put extra energy into being a clown to keep things moving.
My best experiences were teaching from my home to adult NGO workers who were 50+ years old. They all needed basic English for a contract they had secured, about 14 students, so they had a strong desire, but also zero English experience, some of them not even all the alphabet. My Khmer language ability made them willing to study with me, and their hopelessness kept the class fun. We could spend one hour just playing "Where are you going now?" and the hilarious pronunciation and responses.
Another thing I liked was teaching the staff of restaurants and guesthouses. In my anarchist-like attitude, we would under-the-radar of the owner also practice roleplaying about asking for a raise and other things the owner would've never signed off on.
I hope my ESL sins are long forgiven by now.
the acting like a clown thing works but dear lord it is exhausting. I once taught adults in a 2 week program and I don't think anyone learned anything at all. Your adults sound great, mine were all screwing around on their phones while I was teaching, some even took phone calls in the middle of a lesson.
Yay! 🤗
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