Think long term
The Bulletin (Issue 54)
I remind myself of this advice on those Monday mornings when I’m just not feeling it, when the expectation to perform as an English-as-a-foreign-language teacher — to be the always-jolly, always enthused super-hyper-genki ambassador for all things Englishy — just isn’t there.
And that’s OK. It’s hard to get excited about the passive voice. It’s not easy to grade your language when the kindergarten kid thumps you in the scrotum (for those outside of Japan, this is a thing that little boys do here to each other and frequently to their English teacher as a mark of endearment. Don’t ask me why, it makes no sense to me — I have two girls).
But you don’t have to be super genki all the time. Just be professional, get on with the job at hand and the long term will look after itself.
The monetary rewards compound over time, of course. At first, you can barely make ends meet as a self-employed English teacher, but keep improving your teaching skills, keep growing your business one student at a time and you may well find yourself looking back after a few years (as I’m able to do now) and wonder how that one-coin playgroup that used to meet in your living room every Friday morning turned into a thriving business.
But more than that, what might seem a daily or weekly drag — doing the same old, same old English schtick — somehow shapes a generation of new English speakers.
And you do this, one word, one day, one kid at a time.
See you on Friday for the Podcast.
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I used to follow Tom Cox on Twitter back when tweeting was fun, so I was really happy to find he’s moved, like me, to Substack. I love his writing style and wish him all the best. Turns out he, like me, also likes cats, and one in particular.
