Soy profesora de Ingles

Another day, another week, another cancelled class. This is the story of my teaching life here in Santiago, although my circumstance is not a common one.

I am an English teacher for professionals and I travel to them for our classes, they don't come to me at the institute. The idea is that they buy a package that suits their timetable and learning capabilities. This means my classes take place during the sleepy hours of the early morning, the hungry hours of lunchtime or the hours just after work. Unfortunately for me, this also means I have big gapping breaks between classes when I am rendered with nothing to do. If the gap is small enough, I usually go for a coffee and read my book or if the gap is long enough, I go home. It's great when the gap in the mornings is long so that, seeing as I woke up so early, I can then go home and catch up on some much needed sleep.

I usually take the metro six times a day, back and forth, back and forth.

However, as I work according to the agenda of my students, it also means my classes are often suspended due to the reality of a busy work schedule that often gets in the way of my students desires to improve their English. The best situation is when they cancel their class that same day and it means I still get paid. The worst is when I turn up to their office (after usually having travelled an hour to get there) only to learn that the class has been cancelled and I have to then return all the way back home or they cancel with 24 hours notice and I don't get paid.

On the brighter side of things, I am meeting some very interesting people from both Chile and Argentina. I feel sorry for my student who elected to have class at 7:45 am because I am not fully awake at this time, and so I feel as if my classes with him aren't as entertaining as my other classes. I like to think that I adapt my style of teaching according to my students needs, whether that be for a class of one student or for a class of three.

For my alumnos that already speak almost fluently, our classes are very conversational-based and we often lapse into dialogue about our differing countries and cultures. For my mid-level students, we practise their writing skills and for my students whose English is indeed very basic, I often I need to use my translation abilities to keep the momentum going and consequently I get to practise my Spanish.

All the same, each and every student of mine is very nice. I have even been invited to sushi to have a class. We tried dainty selections of tempura as my student practised his conversational skills in English. For all my cursos, I have the useful prop of an English textbook and CD, although for this instance, there was just no room on our table to use the book; I think that's why he has only ever invited me once to lunch. I guess learning English efficiently is more important to him than feeding me. I can't complain really!

And so, for the moment English teaching occupies my days and my mind. No matter how disorganised my organisation may be at times, I am still enjoying this unusual experience of teaching my native tongue in a foreign land.