Teach English in Gedong Zhen - Luliang Shi

Growing up in America, we were taught to go to school, learn your lessons, graduate, find a job that can provide for yourself and your family and of course, teach your children this method. Some what of a rinse and repeat type of cycle. Unfortunately, during the time I was growing up in America, it was most important to secure income, rather than follow your passion. Basically, having a career was ideal, however, getting a job was essential. The main difference in a career and a job is not the money, but the passion. With a job, you wake with an alarm, drink coffee to wake you up, take a shower, drink more coffee and go to work. With a career, you wake up naturally on time, you sing in the shower, you smile during breakfast, you just have an overall joy about you day. I believe this is the first step in securing a growing and successful teaching career. As a teacher, you have the opportunity to impact someone or multiple peoples lives everyday. There is no greater interaction than human interaction. Having this type of mindset and love for what you bring into the lives of your students, everyday, can serve as a motivation during your career. But that's just on a subconscious level. Success is much more than just a state of mind. It is also preparedness. In order to be a successful teacher, you must be prepared to be a continuous student. Being open minded and willing to learn are key. Learning and preparing yourself for your teaching career as a whole as well as on a day to day basis is essential. Preparedness not only includes your lessons, activities and teaching materials, it means your brain as well. Teachers of English would be best prepared by constantly reading, writing,listening and exploring the English language. There are always creative ideas and solutions that can be implemented or improvised in teaching. Another consideration of preparedness for building a successful teaching career would be mental preparation. Often times we get excited to travel and spend time in another country, but we don't consider that we may experience the feeling of being homesick. If you are new to a country and have not made any friends yet, things can feel extra lonely. Those type of emotions can affect your psyche and in turn affect how you carry out your lessons or how you interact with you students. Preparing to be in a far away country for months at a time is a necessity. With today's technology, it is not too difficult to keep in touch with family back in your home country via social media, email, Skype and other resources. In addition, a great tool would also be to reach out to other teachers in your teaching country prior to heading over there. Sometimes having a few people awaiting us can bring comfort and relieve anxiety, stress and tension. In terms of teaching, continuing education classes are always ideal. Language is an amazing thing and is ever changing. Growing up in America, I can tell you that there are words you can find in the dictionary now, that never existed when I was a young child. Continuing education doesn't mean getting a certificate, it can simply be watching a few language videos on Youtube, or reading a book by Cambridge, or sporadically using the reference links given throughout your course work. Ultimately, in order to be a successful teacher, you have to want it. If I had to sum up the key ingredient to a successful teaching career, it would be the word I used very often throughout this essay: Preparedness. After all, the learning and understanding of others is being given to you. That is a huge responsibility. Those who take their responsibilities seriously will always find success.