Global Voices – Tim, New Zealand

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Tim, New Zealand

I teach in the English Language Institute at Victoria University of Wellington, but that is far from where I started out both geographically and professionally.

My planned post-university career didn’t work out and there was no Plan B. But in late 2000 I spotted an advert in a newsletter at home in the UK, asking for people with bachelor’s degrees in anything and a passport suggesting they speak English as a first language to teach in China. Job-entry criteria have become stricter since. I thought it sounded interesting and off I went for five months, with a few days training. The range of people I met, the professional responsibilities and the adventures, I found wonderful – although not everyone has such a great first experience.

Five months became a year, then a year in central Europe, and then more years in Asia and Australasia, a few summer and winter camps in Asia and Europe, a second failed attempt at another career, and then there was a return to teaching and the beginning of doing actual teaching qualifications. With those, better jobs opened up. So far I have: a CELTA; DipTESOL; IDLTM; GradCertTchg; MA TESOL; and recently a Fellowship with the Higher Education Academy. At some point during all this, including some teaching in Canada and on a New Zealand government aid programme in Myanmar just before Covid-19, I realised this had become my profession.

I now work on an English for Specific Purposes programme working with government officials from Southeast Asia and occasionally Mongolia and Africa, where we help participants improve their professional English and cultural knowledge especially in areas connected to their work sectors (renewable energy, education, agricultural development, anti-corruption, etc). It is fascinating work with really focused and friendly students, and something I could not have got into without varied experience. The biggest challenges recently have been which programmes were able to continue online through Covid-19, and reinvigorating the programmes since then* with changes to models, staff and finances. A running theme from students has been that online learning skills are useful but they generally prefer face-to-face contact.

*See MET 32.4, 32.6, and here.

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