A Young Professional at a Career Crossroads

It’s about time that I reflect a little on the work I’m actually doing here – believe it or not, I do actually do some work! It seems more difficult these days that it has been in the past to be a ‘young professional’ or trying to find your way as a graduate. Nevertheless, I’m trying not to let society’s downfalls or negativity get in the way of my own development.

When I’m not socialising or travelling, I’m fulfilling my role as a Comenius Assistant here in a local primary school, as well as giving private tutoring lessons and working on my German language skills by attending a Deutschkurs. 

Working in a local primary school

I have been a part of this school now for almost three months and I have to say that the experience has improved a lot since the first month. It’s heartening to be considered a part of the team and since I’m here for the duration of the whole school year, I have been adopted as such. I even appear on the school website and was included in the school photographs. 

I believe the improvement has stemmed from a number of factors. Firstly, it has taken some time just to get to know the people, the environment and of course the children I’m working with. Since my hours are split between six different classes, it is inevitable that some time is required to learn 139 names! Secondly, in order to enhance my experience I have had to take the initiative so I have been implementing some of my own ideas and taking charge of particular situations. Thirdly, effective communication with other staff members has helped a great deal in planning and understanding my role more concretely. 

In terms of taking the initiative, I was surprised to find that differentiation seems to be much less of a priority here than it is in schools in Northern Ireland. Nevertheless, I have been organising my own lessons in a way that attempts to differentiate according to the children’s language abilities and interests. Perhaps this requires extra thinking and a little more work but I believe that it pays off and makes each lesson much more productive and rewarding. 

Moreover, I felt the need to introduce new ideas for classroom management, particularly in the class with the eldest children in the school (4^th grade, aged 9.) In the beginning, it was quite tricky to establish a professional rapport with the class because they were aware that I couldn’t understand their language and they couldn’t understand much of mine either. They are not the easiest class to manage even at the best of times, even for the class teacher. However, without the presence of the class teacher, things can easily become chaotic and I wasn’t the only one with this problem. So I had to find a way to deal with this. 

In my opinion, it’s not helpful to focus on bad behaviour or punishment and it’s not worth it to give more attention than what it deserves; especially since most children actually want to receive positive reinforcement and feel good about themselves. Therefore, I adapted an idea I found online and introduced a ‘Reward Jar’ to the class. They receive a ‘golden ticket’ when I see them work well, behave well or try to speak well in English. Once the reward jar is full and all the golden tickets have been claimed, one is chosen at random and that person will receive a reward from the ‘surprise box’. The more golden tickets they receive, the more chance they have that theirs will be chosen. The system is designed only for me and does not require any input from the class teacher (except to clarify how it works in German!) This means that I can establish a better position of influence (I prefer to describe it as this, rather than as a position of authority) and have an appropriate means to manage the class.

This idea is one of the better ones I’ve seen with regards to a reward or incentive system. They can be risky in terms of instilling the wrong motivation in children: that they will only offer to help or work well when they know they will get something in return. This can be an attitude that they may take with them into their adult lives and result in only selfish citizens. With the reward jar, they can earn a golden ticket but they are not guaranteed to receive a reward. So far, after 2 weeks of the idea being in place, just one child has chosen something from the surprise box. I’m encouraged to find that the system seems to work and now that they know what happens, the children are more interested and eager to be involved. 

Originally, one of the main goals of coming here on Comenius was to help me decide in somewhat of a crossroads in my career path, whether I should teach children, or teach adults, or not teach at all and branch out into some other area of education. This is still a fundamental goal and to help reach a decision I have expanded my search for possibilities beyond this school year. I think my original love of primary school teaching is rekindling itself here and I’m exploring the options available to teach while also continuing to learn German. I'm beginning to regain confidence in my ability as a teacher and dissolving the doubts that arose during my teacher training in Belfast. My work as a private tutor is also useful for me to explore my own teaching style and attitude.

Life as a private tutor

I have been lucky in that I have not even had to advertise myself as a qualified tutor in order to build up tutoring hours for a little extra cash. As is true for many things, it has been through contacts, networking and word-of-mouth recommendations that I have gained these additional working hours. I tutor several children aged between 9 and 14, as well as a couple of adults in English. As one can imagine, the ability levels are diverse but I find that I manage to adapt unexpectedly well. It depends a lot of course on the expectations of those I’m tutoring, or their parents, but I find that my previous experiences working for the University of Turku and as an au pair/ESL tutor help me to customise my tutoring to each individual. 

Learning German

Not only is Comenius a stepping stone between university life and working life, it is the best opportunity to learn a language. I’m surprised by my own progress and motivation to learn. Even though I knew immersion in the country where the target language is spoken is highly effective for language learning, I completely underestimated the level of productivity this can produce. I find myself often thinking of how to say something in German and I have even had a few dreams in Deutsch! In my head, of course it is the case that I can produce wonderful sentences and hold a great conversation, but in reality it doesn’t quite transfer correctly from thinking to speech. This is probably quite normal, especially for someone still in the beginning stages, but I know I can do more to improve through increased practise and exposure.

Soon I will complete my first German course here and I’m preparing to enrol on another one that will hopefully start in January. I will probably switch from the Volkshochschule to the university course, mainly because the university courses are recommended and there is less of a commute. There are advantages and disadvantages to both though; I really enjoy my course in the Volkshochschule – it has more frequent classes than the university course, as well as being cheaper; the teacher is great and makes learning German entertaining and accessible; and there is a diverse range of people in the class (there are only about 10 of us, which is ideal for a language class) whom I have enjoyed getting to know. However, it would be nice not to have to commute for the guts of an hour to get there, meaning that for 3 evenings a week I have to reserve the time from 5pm to 10pm simply for the course plus commuting. 

In between the courses, I hope to continue learning every day and have ordered a 5-in-1 German for Dummies book to help in addition to tandem meetings and watching movies in German. 

That was a short glimpse into my professional life, or at least the foundations of it that I’m still in the process of building, with the hope that I can catapult myself from this career crossroads into a profession that is motivating, rewarding and fulfilling. Let’s hope that’s realistic.