I was a teacher once

Back in Istanbul, more than ten years ago, I taught English in a couple of language schools. It was a thing to do for many Europeans and Americans who moved to the city. However, most of the crowd had actually gone through the effort of obtaining a CELTA, DELTA, or TEFL certificate. I relied on my then absolutely non-existent introverted charm and likability to get jobs and clients. For better or for worse, it worked.

I genuinely loved teaching. Explaining stuff to people, helping them learn, making them laugh. The job also gave me access to people from different layers of Stambulian society - former military folk, university lecturers, doctors, spoiled teenagers, religious people, rebels, artists, and so on.

The pay was fine as well. Sadly, hacks like me would sometimes even get paid more than local teachers with actual degrees in English, Linguistics or Education. All my wages came in a brown envelope and once when a job inspector came, I had to timidly hide behind a large plant.

The schools were their own republics, with their own rules. Failing a student was quite frowned upon, as people paid money and wanted to advance. Even if there was no progress to be seen. Sometimes, but not that often (and not to the extent teachers are asked to do this in Asia) we were asked to pretend to be Americans.

Remembering those days evokes some funny memories. I’d like to share a few here:

1. I once had a teenager try to tell me (and the class) something really cool. Never had I seen someone perusing the dictionary with such enthusiasm. After flipping through the pages and finding what he was looking for, he exclaimed “CREAM OR DIE!”. Like many youngsters, the boy was into skateboarding, and the words for 'skate' and 'cream' are homographs in Turkish.

2. A private student I had really loved the topic of IT security. It was all he talked about. For some reason, we’d always get assigned the smallest room in the school, one with no windows or AC. We’d sweat together, talking about “attack vectors” and “data breaches”. I think he changed at least two teachers before me, making me the most patient listener of them all.

3. I loved introducing new activities into the classroom. Online, I found this game where people had to roleplay someone from a colourful cast of characters stranded on a desert island. The cast included a rich and greedy old man, a drug user, a seductive woman, and a gay man. After a few embarrassing scenes (men in their 40s can be rather childish) I had to remove that character from the deck.

4. This was in the pre-smartphone era (well, Blackberry was a thing, but come on), but I clearly remember having to confiscate phones. From adults. Adults who paid decent money to sit in a stuffy class and perfect their vocab.

5. Unorthodox methods I used included watching and analysing episodes of Mind your Language (a rather problematic series I reviewed here) and reading through a book called A Concise Chinese-English Dictionary for Lovers. The novel was purposefully written in broken English, which improved as the main character improved her skills. I remember the book being a bit cheesy and full of hanky-panky.

6. Sometimes no one showed up for the class and I’d still get paid. Those classes were the best!

7. Going out for beers with students was a reward in and of itself. So if you want to make your teacher’s day, invite them for a drink.

There are more memories waiting to be uncovered and I’ll make sure to share them with you one day. If you like this little post or have some memories of your own to share, the comment section is your oyster!

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