V. Write an essay about a teacher in your life.

A TEACHER’S PROFILE

Why I became a teacher

I became a teacher because I failed to be an actor. I had no zeal about teaching whatsoever, and did not particularly enjoy my first year of teaching in Greece. In fact, I didn’t go to Greece because I wanted to teach at all; I went to discover my roots. I’m still digging.

Something not many people know about me

Perhaps many people don’t know I used to be bowlegged till the age of six; perhaps they don’t want to know, either. However, if anyone is interested in the traumas of my childhood and how they have shaped my thinking as a teacher, trainer and writer, then this early physical deformity may help to explain why I have such a twisted view of fundamental issues in ELT. I used to love playing cowboys and Indians and my favourite TV cowboy was, of course, Hop-a-long Cassidy. Eventually my legs straightened out and I transferred my allegiance to the native Americans.

My best teaching moment

When a student, at the end of a lesson, said she had come to class with a headache but felt the lesson without one.

My worst teaching moment

When a student came to class feeling on top of the world and left with a headache.

The book I have found most useful

Lessons from the Learner by Shelagh Deller. This book has been a goldmine of ideas for using the learners’ own words as a starting point for enriching their knowledge of English. It has inspired some of the most memorable lessons for me, and I hope for the learners, too.

My most tricky teaching point

The difference between the simple past and the present perfect is a minefield, especially when the students’ own L1 has one form for both. No sooner have I explained the difference succinctly and in a fool-proof manner, than we turn to the textbook and find the first example it gives contradicts what I had said with such confidence only seconds before.

How I’d like to be remembered as a teacher

Standing up and scattering success and joy in the classroom.

My biggest mistake

I’m spoilt for choice here. Let me give the reader a multiple-choice. Luke’s biggest mistake was:

(a) failing his driving test three times

(b) not trying one more time to be an actor

(c) not doing a PhD in Shakespeare studies when he was young and had boundless energy

(d) not becoming an ELT textbook writer ten years earlier.

My greatest success

My three children, Rosa, Michael and Antony. If there’s one thing even more difficult than teaching well, it’s bringing up children well. To nurture a child into a happy, intelligent and democratic human being is the kind of success I’m still hoping to achieve.

The person who most influenced my teaching

Mario Rinvolucri, an inexhaustible source og inspiring ideas and a generous friend and colleague.

My favourite class

The class I call the United Nations (2000-2001) in Thessaloniki, adult beginners of six different nationalities: Turks, Greeks, an Albanian, a Bulgarian, a Brazilian and a French student. For a year, English was a true lingua franca in this mixed-level Macedonian salad of a class. It was great watching them building bridges through the use of English and listening to each other’s voices through a language that belonged to no one but was being appropriated by all.

My message to new teachers

Teaching English is not a soft option. It’s hard work and the more you put in, the more you get out. Never forget that ELT is a branch of education – and you won’t go far wrong.

My favourite language teaching anecdote

A teacher came out of the class depressed because some of the students had been looking at their watches during her lesson. Another teacher heard this and chipped in. ‘That’s nothing – in my class they were looking at their watches, listening to them and shaking them vigorously!’

If you met me at a conference, you’d recognise me because…

I look like a mixture of Groucho Marx and Jimi Hendrix. (If only I could teach like Groucho told jokes and like Jimi played the guitar!)

/by Luke Prodromou

October, 19, 2002/

Set Work

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