Return of the peripatetic preceptor and the languid language learners

@wwaycorrigan

[Listen to an audio version of this blog entry here.]

As the old adage goes, 'never say never.'

So while I have let it be known that over the years I've grown quite tired of freelance English teaching since I first started such work in 2012, I don't think I actually ever said that I would never return to it.

A fresher-faced Wrong Way, um, spreading knowledge back in 2012. 

Face time

Nonetheless, having, since 2018, largely left behind the travelling teacher gig — travelling from class to class across Bogotá that is, and usually spending more time getting to classes than giving them — the thoughts of going back to that lifestyle are anathema to me.

OK, those in the Teaching-English-as-a-foreign-language (Tefl) industry will point to the fact that the pandemic has largely eliminated the need for the peripatetic preceptor. Online sessions now appear to have become the norm.

From the perspective of a teacher with multiple clients/students in different companies — the market I'm specifically referring to here — why rush around Bogotá or wherever when classes can be conducted from a fixed point, staring into a computer screen?

'I want virtual sessions to end as soon as they begin.'

Virtual classes allow for far more teaching time as there's no travel involved. With that, potentially anyway, there's more scope to earn money.

I, however, prefer the face-to-face approach. I've found giving lessons over the internet to be more draining than the traditional method. I generally want virtual sessions to end as soon as they begin. (A strong dislike of working from home — I've yet to have accommodation in Bogotá that I'd truly call my "home" — does play a part in this mindset.)

Call me, um, old-school if you like, but I enjoy being able to stand up, walk around the class, nay meeting room, and make use of a whiteboard.

Putting all that together, and barring a complete collapse in my personal finances, the only way I could return with a degree of enthusiasm to teaching English is with a well-remunerated, fixed-term, part-time deal (Wrong Way does need time to nourish his own brand), preferably with a reputable company.

That is to say, an arrangement where a price for the service is agreed on before commencement. The pay-per-class model, particularly when it's the student forking out and not his/her company, is usually not a steady source of income.

'Qualification is a result, education a process.'

This, what I consider a more attractive teaching proposition — in-person, relatively well-paid and "guaranteed" by a company — is what I've recently signed up to. The first payment date has yet to pass, so until the money is firmly in my account I'll hold off on congratulating myself for my negotiating skills.

Yet, somewhat nervously, I have already started. So after over four years, I'm back giving in-person classes to business professionals.

The difference now is that it's mainly on my terms. There's no intermediary institute or the like cashing in on my endeavours. (To repeat, the first payment is pending, so I write cautiously here.)

Now, lest I be accused of adopting nothing more than mercenary methods for work that requires plenty of enthusiasm and passion, not to mention know-how, I'm not merely in it for the money, just going through the motions.

For one, it's a 20-kilometre round-trip from my apartment to the office. That's a bit outside my comfortable walking zone, especially when one has to lug a laptop around. Once I've received the first payment, the plan is to buy a decent bike. (I do have access to one but it's not the most efficient of two-wheelers. Put it this way, it doesn't entice one to ride it.)

The new part-time office. It's due to pay off a bit better that the panadería.

Logistics aside, the fact that two of the three students are little better than beginners means these are far from my favoured form of classes. Moreover, that one of those two has been trying — with little success, evidently — to learn English for years, gives an idea of the task at hand.

Educational excellence

In a more general sense, it does beg the question, are some people just ill-equipped to learn a foreign language? Most cognitive experts would answer that in the negative.

It isn't that there are those who simply can't acquire another tongue because their brains are "wired differently". In many instances, it comes down to the learner's desire. If there is a real need then most likely he/she will learn. Necessity is the mother of invention, after all.

For sure, teachers — or as I like to call them, facilitators/guides — play an important role in this, too. They have to know their "brief" for starters.

Creating the right pedagogical environment and following a method that best suits the student's learning capacities are other factors. One-to-one instruction allows for greater flexibility for both of these compared to classes in big groups.

For me, that's the key. Flexibility. What works for one student may not work for another. I like to think that I do have this adaptability.

I do, however, sometimes receive criticism from qualified English teachers because I'm not 'a real one.' My retort: What is a "real" teacher?

In my school-going days, I had numerous "qualified" teachers who appeared quite inept at imparting the knowledge that they had learned. They certainly weren't figures of inspiration.

Again, one does have to know the nuts and bolts of the subject in question before he/she can teach it but simply having this knowledge doesn't mean one can easily pass it on to others. Not all gifted sports stars go on to become great coaches, after all.

This is a danger with qualifications and the weight they often carry. One feels one has "made it", so to put it, on receiving the piece of paper to hang on the wall.

Yet, qualification is a result, education a process. Learning, after all, only ends at death.
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Listen to Wrong Way's Colombia Cast podcast here.

Facebook: Wrong Way Corrigan — The Blog & IQuiz "The Bogotá Pub Quiz".

Scaling down survival mode

@wwaycorrigan

[Listen to an audio version of this blog entry here.]

Whether one agrees or not with the coronavirus pandemic response taken by most of the world, the fact is we've all had to live with the constraints for well over a year now.

School's still out in many parts of Bogotá, even if some kids would like to see it back.

Fear mentality

As is well known, and as is the case for so many causes of death, those who have had most to fear from covid-19 are the elderly, followed by people with underlying conditions.

For the rest of us, the majority, the risk the infection represents is minimal. 

However, the extraordinary measures introduced across the globe to reduce contagion resulted in irrational reactions by some folk who in reality face greater threats to their lives than this virus. (Some will say, altruistically, they've done it to save the lives of others. All they may have done, though, is caused more harm to themselves and others.)

The lifting of this fear mentality is not something that will come easily. This is particularly so when we have overly cautious leaders who continue to suffer from covid monomania and a majority in the media who submissively follow the official line. It has been as if no other cause of hardship and death really exists.  

This myopia appears most acute in high-income countries, places where many enjoy a comfortable existence, relatively speaking, with restrictions less impactful. While Colombia has had its lockdowns and the like, the approach of late has largely been 'carry on regardless'.

Except, that is, for arguably the most pressing area where a return to "normality" is needed: primary and secondary education. Most schools are continuing with sub-standard virtual learning. 

OK, we have seen some in-person classes with reduced capacity and alternate days, but it's the private schools that have been more proactive on this front. The public institutes, as they tend to do, lag behind. Thus, the divide between the privileged and the rest deepens.

'The monster is the irrational fear that continues to dominate public discourse and policy.'

The thing is, because of health concerns amongst teachers and other staff — misplaced as they are for many — plus the general state of covid fear being promulgated, no one is in a major panic to go back to pre-pandemic ways.

Monster mash

In the same way that people mistakenly call Frankenstein the monster — Frankenstein was, of course, the monster's creator — coronavirus is not monster-in-chief, it created the conditions for a scarier one to emerge.

That monster is the irrational fear that continues to dominate public discourse and policy. Even those of us who have questioned the pandemic response can't avoid being caught up in this.

I, for one, went into survival mode, financially speaking in any case. 

So even though one has been free to travel around Colombia largely unrestricted for months now — the national strike disturbances notwithstanding — nonchalantly moving around the country, eating into one's steadily diminishing savings just hasn't seemed prudent. (OK, my own future would have been uncertain pandemic or not, but the overall atmosphere doesn't help whatsoever.)

As is the case for millions of others across the world, the lack of a steady income muddies the waters further. When one isn't sure where the next significant payment is coming from, it makes it more difficult to ease off the financial brakes.  

A more liberal approach would be to not get bogged down in cash concerns (for those who have the luxury to do so, that is. Most of my Colombian friends live, at best, from week to week). Bet on things improving both personally and on a grander scale in the not-too-distant future. Calmer waters are on the horizon.

While there may be truth to that, my conservative side dominates my thinking here. Or based on last week's post, some of you might say my doomsday, glass-is-half-empty view darkens the landscape.

Whatever the case, there are certain things beyond our control. The best we can do is to have mechanisms in place to ensure those uncontrollables have less of an impact on us than they might otherwise have if left unthought of.

That is to say, survival mode is somewhat permanent. It's just that certain events see us scale up this modus operandi more so than others. They also tend to make us more risk-averse in numerous ways, damaging as that may be over the medium to long term.
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Listen to Wrong Way's Colombia Cast podcast here.

Facebook: Wrong Way Corrigan — The Blog & IQuiz "The Bogotá Pub Quiz".

 

A qualified, uneducated elite

OK, perhaps we’re guilty of being a little naive. Maybe this happens all over the place, not just here in Colombia. But we weren’t aware of it. Well, we never really asked questions about it to be honest.

'How much is a master's?' 'How much have you got?'

Apparently, though, a host of the country’s brightest and best obtain degrees and masters in a less than equitable way – or at least in a way that just doesn’t seem proper. 

It’s not a case of ‘what you know’ or even ‘who you know’; it’s more to do with ‘who you are and where you come from’.

You see, we have it on good authority that a number of students in Colombia’s highest-rated university – Los Andes – are ‘too big to fail’, in a sense. That is, if their exam performances would see them fall short going by the standard marking procedure, that procedure is adjusted to see them right.

We’ve been told by a very trusted professional source inside the college that if he was to grade his students by the international norm – and this is in a subject area where there should be very little room for divergence – he’d be hard pressed to pass any of them. 

Indeed, it’s got to the point now where our insider doesn’t mark the exams he sets – they’re passed on to a third party who is more willing to mark in a ‘superficial and positive way’, as it was explained to us.

This sort of practice isn’t just limited to Los Andes. In another of Bogotá’s reputable universities, we heard of a more personal case which gives an idea of the questionable standards of grading that are practised in the capital, if not Colombia in general.

Indeed.

A female student who had barely attended any of her lectures all semester turned up to sit her final exam. When handing it in at the end, she also presented a doctor’s cert saying she had been ill for the last week – just a week now, not the whole semester. 

She demanded that her expat professor grade her leniently because of this. When she was told her week of sickness was no grounds for preferential marking – especially considering she barely turned up all term – she went berserk.

The professor, though, didn’t shirk – not until, that is, he was told by his department head that the girl should be marked favourably i.e. that she shouldn’t fail, even though she should have. Lunacy. Yet such occurrences here are not as unusual as you would like to see according to those we’ve spoken to who work in this area.

It certainly lends more credence to one of our favourite sayings: ‘Qualification is a result, education a process’. 

These people – and considering their backgrounds and schooling many of them will be Colombia’s future "leading lights" – can rather easily get their qualification, their little piece of paper saying that they are knowledgeable in a certain field, yet many perhaps are far from properly educated. 

Now, this isn't to say that their professors or lecturers are not fit for purpose – on the contrary, you can find some of the finest educators around working here. It’s more about the demands put on the system by these students and their parents, coupled with the significant influence they have.

Important but worthless?

Of course, even without the shocking practices highlighted above, the previous paragraph could be aimed at many people who have degrees or masters. 

In one way getting your qualification is a bit like a placebo effect – it can make you feel that bit better about yourself but does it really better you? It can make some people more arrogant anyway.

Yes, a degree or a master’s is needed to open many doors or even just to be considered for numerous positions – a necessary evil in many ways. But like most things, practice makes perfect. It’s usually the case that you learn much more by getting down and dirty in whatever area you have your qualification in – if you have one – than what you learnt in schooling.

Bearing all that in mind, it would seem prudent for many companies, as some of the more progressive are now doing, to review what sort of qualifications they look for when hiring. 

Ruling out somebody straight away just because he/she doesn’t have a degree or a master’s could be foolish, in the same way that it may be unwise to include people just because they are well "qualified" in terms of letters after their name and pieces of paper on their walls.

After all, in the long run, it may be better to be mastered by a fool than to be fooled by an apparent master.