A Month In

I started working for Eleutian Technologies a month ago, and let me tell you, it's boss! Eleutian is part of the growing E Learning community. With this company, I connect with students in South Korea and Japan through Skype, and teach them English.

Let me detail a typical lesson for you:

10:00 PM: make my way into the office

10:05 PM: log into Skype, make sure my recorder is working and that video is clear

10:10 PM: Enter into the Korean website (in English!), where I find my lesson plans

10:11 PM: For the next hour and ten minutes, I go over lesson plans, locate images and cards to help teach the phonetics, check my time, think up crazy games for the kids, double check my lessons

11:19 PM: With just thirty seconds to go, I call my first class. It is a group of ten year olds just learning English. I start class.

11:50 PM: I finish my class, and made the most of the games. I make a quick review of the lesson, self-deprecating along the way. This is done quickly, because I only have four and a half minutes before my next class.

11:54 PM: Same as 11:19, except the class is now composed of twelve year olds. My lesson is completely different, and my vocabulary changes.

12:25 PM: Last class ends. The kids laugh at my inability to pronounce Korean names, so they give me "English" names. I swallow my pride and make my final report.

That is just a brief glimpse into what I do. I also teach one on one sessions with older students, where we just talk and work on sentence structures. I am beginning a new shift where I will talk to teachers and give them tips on teaching English as a Second Language.

Sure the hours are rough (anywhere from 5 PM- 9 AM), but I can't think of a better job. With my decision to become an English teacher, Eleutian is giving me opportunities to prepare to teach, specifically students from a foreign language background. That is just a small case; the big deal resides within. I am learning about myself, my pedagogical views and desire to teach professionally. It is frustrating sometimes, but I love what I do. And at the end of the day, that is the motivation behind teaching. It isn't the money; it's the desire to make the world better, one student or class at a time.