I was there a whiteboard in front of me, with a marker pen in hand and all in inspiration in the world. I was writing different language concepts on the board such as prepositions and verbs to those who don’t understand the language as well as I do.
Looking around was a traditional classroom—set up with a decent whiteboard and many marker pens. Rows and rows of tables stretched to the back of the classroom with each row filled with students each person eager to learn.
“Welcome” said the headteacher. “You will be in charge of grade 4 in this classroom”.
The desks were brown and very rustic, like in a traditional meeting room that had brown wooden tables. They were each of similar size, pretty much identical and each desk could be opened to store many things within each table.
Outside was a great view of the majestic city of Guangzhou which is a large city in Southern China. This was my dream, teaching English to those who deserved to learn and those who wanted to learn. The smells of Chinese Dim Sum and Cantonese food littered the air with a rich fragrant aroma.
At the same time in the evenings, I worked from home, enjoying my job as someone who was a writer and enjoyed translating various documents. Working as a freelance translator was something that someone suggested in the past at a language exchange event in Birmingham – something that was the best advice given to me in a long time.
I was given documents to translate, and I was paid by word count. Being a polyglot who could understand and speak several languages such as English, Cantonese, Mandarin, Italian and Japanese I could put my language skills to the test and see how I could do.
Overall, on that same day, I would go to the local language school, to teach English to speakers of other languages and as well as this I would have already acquired a CELTA and TEFL certificate to help me along the way. As well as freelance translating I was also spending around half an hour a day to get my CeOLT (Certificate of Online Language Teaching) from the guy Olly Richards who started this course.
It was intense with module after module required to be completed and as well as this it would take 250+ hours. With no end in sight, I was feeling down but I felt that this was a great career move and an opportunity to break out of the 9-5 pattern and to work solely from home and online.
From teaching in a classroom and teaching online, as well as freelance translating and gaining my CeOLT certification life was fast and busy but very rewarding and enjoyable. I wanted to pursue my heart’s desire which was always to use my passion for languages for the greater good. In the end, an option that was well deserved.
Leave a Reply