I have been teaching Spanish online for almost one year, but although the short time I have in this area, I think I've had an interesting experience. I started working on this by casualty, but I discovered a real vocation and opportunity, and something I would like to do for the rest of my life.
I found my actual job by on Facebook. Yes, on Facebook. I saw an announcement from the company where I work, and it said that they were looking for people with a deep knowledge of Spanish and with a good level of English to work as an online Spanish teacher. That sounded interesting for me, so I decided to send them my CV by email and wait for their response.
Fuente
Unexpectedly, they called me back and they told me that they would like to have an interview with me. And that's how this road full of learning began. My first class was terrifying! I was really nervous, but a few weeks later everything was much easier. And now, here I am, writing about my experience as if I were an expert (but I'M NOT). In this post I'm just going to talk about three interesting facts about this profession, all of them related to the culture:
1. To teach a language is to teach about a culture.
We can teach a language by adopting a cultural approach. That is, we can use cultural elements to enrich our language teaching process. That way, we are not going to teach just grammar lessons, but we will share the ability to appreciate and value the different cultures that speak the language we are teaching. Besides, we are going to expand our student's horizon.
2. To teach a language is to develop the intercultural competence of our students.
This fact is closely related to the last one. The "intercultural competence" is defined by our loved Wikipedia as a range of cognitive, affective, and behavioral skills that lead to communicate effectively and appropriately with people with other cultures, with is very important nowadays, in globalization times. And if we adopt a cultural approach for our classes, we are going to contribute with the development of this competence.
3. To teach a language is to learn about a culture.
Finally, all of us should know that in any teaching experience, we don't only teach, we also learn a lot. Teaching Spanish -or any language- it's a great opportunity to know people from different countries and cultures. This makes the teaching of a language an invaluable and enriching experience and is something that I really value of my profession.
These are just three reasons why I love and enjoy my job, and I would like to become into a better Spanish teacher. This profession always remembers me that I'll always be a learner.
I promise to tell you about other reasons and facts about teaching Spanish -or languages, in general- in my next posts. :)