The money tongue

“Those who can do, those who can’t teach.” Needless to say, that’s quite an arrogant, dismissive saying for all those honest, hard-working teachers who enter the profession, not as a fall-back, but for a genuine love of teaching. 

It’s also probably a safe bet that the person who first uttered those words never engaged in teaching him/herself. Just because you might be skilled at something does not necessarily mean you can pass those same skills on to others. 

Getting somebody to learn something generally requires completely different attributes than doing it yourself. As we often see, many of the best sports players don’t make good coaches. Roy Keane could tell you all about that, for one.

'What? You're saying I can't teach?'

 This whole teaching world was something that never really interested us, to be honest. But needs must and all that, so when you’re in a country – a continent even – where there is a massive, by and large misplaced demand for native English speakers to teach the language, it would be foolish not to ‘ride the wave’, for a time at least. Easy money, relatively speaking.

 

Not only that but since we’ve got into it, it has been pretty enjoyable. Being a facilitator for those who really want to learn (teaching English to business professionals is our primary work) is much different, we imagine, from teaching school kids, many of whom feel they’re in your company by force. 

Plus, when you get clients who have a fairly high level of English already and are just looking to brush up or have a regular conversation, it almost doesn’t seem like work – bar the early morning starts that is. 

In fact, with private students it can even become a little uncomfortable – sitting down having a loosely structured chat for about two hours or whatever and then taking their money at the end. 

So while there’s potentially more loot to be made directly from private tuition, going through a company/institute hides the mercenary element to all of this somewhat.

'Help! I said I didn't want to teach kids!'

Other advantages of teaching through a company or a school/university – the latter being even better for stability, pay and regular classes if that’s your want – is that they will usually provide you with the material and obviously source the students/clients for you. 

Now, while having the teaching material provided may not be seen as a major bonus for many (although, we do like it), having the students sourced for you can take a lot of hassle and frustration out of your life. 

We have dipped our toes into the world of private lessons but getting consistent students is a problem. 

Mention that you teach English to many Colombians and they’ll practically jump all over you wanting to take classes. 

However, as is the case in most areas of life here, promises don’t count for much. So much so that we’re considering charging a consultation fee to anyone who even just casually broaches the idea of us teaching them. In this business, we can’t allow talk to be cheap. 

Having said that, and at the risk of writing ourselves out of work, we do believe, as mentioned in passing above, that the demand for native English speakers from many Colombians is, at times, misplaced. 

An unqualified native teacher is perhaps – this is, of course, all case dependent – not the best person to explain all the various rules of the language. 

For such types, speaking their native tongue comes naturally. 

So when faced with questions as to why we say things one way over another, the ‘official’ terminology or whatever, a native speaker is often dumbstruck. In such scenarios, a non-native teacher may be better equipped to explain the idiosyncrasies of the tongue in question. 

Essential English — no need or time for 'manure' talk.

Put it this way, if you decided to start taking lessons in Mandarin, it might be more prudent to initially have a teacher from your own country who never spoke the language and now speaks it well. 

He/she is generally best placed to know the potential pitfalls in learning and what the most confusing aspects of the language are – at least in the initial stages.

From our own perspective, however, we must be doing something right in this English teaching game – we still seem to be wanted anyway. 

At times, though, we feel we could – should even – be doing more and teaching less.