TESOL

Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages

People have asked me what I plan to do with French. I find myself following a script.
Eleanor: "I don't have any idea. Maybe international relations."
Interested: "Have you thought about teaching?"
Eleanor: *ugly face* "I do NOT want to teach."

My advisor and I have had a few long discussions on the choices set before me. We've discussed diplomacy, doctorats, professorship, curating. I go along with the conversation, prodding her mind of any information she could offer. In my heart, I don't want to be a diplomat or a professor or a museum curator. You might slowly shake your head if you knew what I wanted to do. You wouldn't doubt my dreams, that I know, but my dreams aren't of a practical sort. They involve music, books, the jungle, the desert, the sky.

This morning, not 10 seconds after opening my eyes, a word fell from the ceiling and gently landed of the edge of my thought. TESOL. It's a certificate program offered by my university. It's crossed my dream traffic before; I ran it off the road. Guess what the "T" stands for...TEACHING. Yet, the more I look into it, the more excited I feel. I do not want to be a teacher to teach teachers to teach teachers. That appears to be the only opportunity with French. But if I could share with human beings the love of life...

A pastor from the Congo spoke at my church yesterday and a missionary from a small island near Australia gave a slide presentation. Over lunch, I talked with a couple from the island of Mahé. The woman was originally from Madagascar. Last Friday, my Japanese student drew me a map of Japan and pointed out the major cities. She wrote their names in Japanese. She's getting married in France and I'm invited to the wedding.

I'm still learning that the gift of life is unwrapped in time.