Telling our ELT Stories - The First Year

I recently came across this publication of classroom stories (the good, the bad and the unforgettable!) from teachers who were remembering their very first year in the classroom. This actually brought together for me two recent events that I'd like to share with you. The first was an ELT event that was entitled "Telling our ELT Stories" and the second was an invitation to write a short piece for an international ELT publication, describing precisely my own first experiences in the classroom, which took place about 24 years ago!!

As President of the local chapter of Braz-TESOL, here in Brasilia, it was my enormous pleasure just a couple of weeks ago to welcome teachers from all over the region and from other cities (such as Goiânia, Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo) who came to share their stories from the wonderful world of ELT. Our opening plenary was given by a renowned specialist in Storytelling (not to mention Puppeteering and just about every other aspect of teaching and training... my dear friend Valéria França, and it was called "A space for stories: Stories in space). There was also another great plenary from the British Council's Fernando Guarany ("Accounts from the Open Road: Lessons and Principles from an ELT Journey"). Clearly, the theme of sharing stories from our experience as ELT professionals was a popular one, and the 150 or so participants were very positive about the lessons learned and shared.

The other recent event that reminded me of the importance of sharing our experiences, and not just the good ones!... was a request that came by e-mail from an international publication's editor, requesting contributions of stories from our very first day in the classroom! The kind of responses they were looking for were to revolve around the following questions:
- What did it feel like back then? 
- Was it a positive or a negative experience for you? 
- What did you do about it? 
- How has this changed you, both as a person and as a professional? 

So here goes part of my response to these questions about my first day as a teacher of English!

IN AT THE DEEP END?

"I first set foot in a real ELT classroom, after only a very brief introduction to the basics of EFL, in 1989 in the NE Brazilian town of Aracaju. I was one of only a handful of foreigners in the city at the time and boasted the tender age of 17!! My ‘baptism’ in ELT was of the 'in at the deep end' variety that was so much more common in those days, when it was often deemed enough to be a native speaker, even without any degree or qualifications! I’m glad those days are gone, for our students' sake! However, contrary to what you might expect, I remember those early days very fondly... with flashbacks to hours of preparation for classes lasting only 50-60 minutes... endless searching for and cutting-out of magazine pictures to be used for flashcards etc. Perhaps the best thing about my early experience was that since I'm one of those people who never says 'NO!', I accepted everything they threw at me, so my classes ranged from VYLs (with all the storytelling and singing, cutting and pasting that goes hand-in-hand with that age group) through lots of teen classes (where I think the Ss were glad to have a teacher only a couple of years older than them!) and adult beginner classes where the sense of achievement and progress experienced by Ss in a short period of time can be hugely rewarding for the teacher... up to Cambridge English (then ESOL) exam prep classes, from FCE to CPE! This willingness to take-on new and different challenges has stayed with me throughout my career. Although I love my role as an ELT Publishing Consultant and teacher trainer, working for the best-known family of language schools in Brazil, Cultura Inglesa, I do miss those intense experiences of reflection on practice as a newbie teacher, with a view to constant development and growth, a lot of which came, in those days, from sharing of stories and ideas in the staffroom!"

Perhaps those of you who, like me, have over 20 years of experience in this field, will have supressed those memories of your first days in class, but maybe they are still as crystal clear to you as other striking/traumatic events (known as 'flashbulb memories' in cognitive psychology!).

Of course, if you have only recently embarked on this profession, you should still have fresh feelings about your first day in class!

Why not share your earliest memories of the classroom in the comments section below?