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1. –My name is Michael Crane and I teach English as a foreign language.
-Have you always been a teacher?
-I have been a teacher for the last 20 years, but I’ve also done other jobs. In publishing, I was the assistant editor of Collins German dictionary.
2. –So how long have you been teaching English as a foreign language?
-Well, since I qualified doing a postgraduate diploma in the use of a foreign language at Leed’s University in 1970. So that’s more or less, 20 years.
-Do you only teach in England or have you traveled abroad?
-No, I have taught English In France, Germany and Iceland.
3. –Looking back at your training, do you think your training gave you a good idea of what the job was all about?
-In terms of theory and practice, yes. But there is a big difference teaching English as a foreign language in Britain language school and abroad. I don’t think it prepares you for the kind of cultural isolation that you will experience when you suddenly find yourself in a small town in the middle of France or in the middle of Iceland or in the middle of Germany. You have to be self-reliant.
4. –You mentioned self-reliance. What other qualities make a good teacher?
-First and foremost, enthusiasm, mastery of the subject, a certain amount of acting ability. I think you have to like to project yourself, project your personality. It goes without saying in interesting people. Students know very quickly if you’re just there to earn your money or if you are interested or not, and if you’re interested, they are interested and half the battle is over.
-Tell me about the sort of students you’re teaching now.
-Well, at the moment I have a class, a small class of intermediate students: a German economist, an Italian secretary, and an Italian student for the first half of my day. And for the second half, I have a very interesting man doing a one-to- one course, who is actually the dean, the professor of transport studies at the University of Dresden, and he is advising the German government on the improvement of the network of the Reichbahn, which was the rail service in the old DDR, and also has some active consulting capacity to the Board of British Rail. And He is a very interesting man.
5. –Do you also teach beginning students?
-I have taught beginners because I speak fluent German. This may go against some people’s theory of language learning. I do occasionally teach people, complete beginners, who have actually stipulated on their booking form that they want a German speaker because some people especially older people, executives, businessmen, politicians, feel somewhat that their dignity is at stake and they need an explanation or even a translation and they haven’t got the time. I mean I think you can teach elementary to complete beginners if they’ve got six months through signs. But if someone is there for just a week or eight days, you have to do a certain amount of translation. One keeps to the minimum.
6. –Is it a routine job, or are you always doing something different?
-That depends on your approach to it. If you’ve just one of these teachers who says, you know, “turn to your books on page one and let’s do some fill in the grammar slots”, it will be routine. But if you vary the material you use, you combine it with video work, outside work, you change classes regularly, attend workshops, keep yourself up-to-date with modern developments, it’s not a routine job
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