School & Teaching

I still haven't mentioned it I think but apart from being a Main Office Manager, I am also an English teacher. Actually it is my first job. Something like 2 years before I graduated from the English & French Linguistics Department at the University, I started giving private lessons. Then, just after the graduation, I started teaching in public and private schools. At the beginning I did this because I wanted to be more independent, I started to care about my look, I started to hate window shopping. Then after coming to Sicily, I wanted to find a job as a teacher but the strange system (politics?) in country says you cannot teach languages unless you are a native speaker of the language. And so you can find people, whose education has nothing to do with didactics, methodology, who aren't prepared to teach (people who have graduated from Chemistry, IT departments, etc.) Absurd, I know. And then I found this wonderful Institute where everyone speaks English, where I have opportunity to speak and use the language on a daily basis. I feel extremely lucky. However this does not mean I stopped being a tutor. I give private lessons at home to teenagers and adults or I organise private courses in hotels, offices, etc. and I find it really enjoyable and rewarding. I love to see that my students pass all sorts of exams (school exams, Cambridge and Trinity exams, etc.), that they come back from holidays with a smile on their faces because they managed to buy a bread, send a postcard or ask for directions to a local museum. It makes me proud and happy. It doesn't mean it's always bed of roses since I am a very strict, severe and demanding teacher. Oh yes I am.