I Want to Become English Teacher
When I grow up I want to become an English teacher. Whenever I go to my mom’s classroom after school on Wednesday I learn more and more about the life of an English teacher. Some days like when I was out of school for my play in winter I got to see in depth what happens. As I learned about the job I got more curious and wanted to know everything about is. After learning more about the job I thought it was a great idea to be an English teacher. As an English teacher you get to help students achieve their goals and help them grow. I was always appealed with helping people learn.
The first step of becoming an English teacher is graduating high school and getting your high school diploma. Then you’re off to college. In college you are required to take classes to get a bachelor degree in English. In certain states teachers must earn a master’s degree after getting their teaching license. It is recommended but not required to take a class in public speaking. Ms.Mcmahon an English teacher at Decatur high school lists the classes English teachers need to get the job, “You need at least a bachelor’s degree and coursework in subject area.”
Outside of schooling there are some helpful skills to have. If the schools you’re interested in use technology, you should learn about the technology they use so you can answer most of the students questions about the technology. It is also very helpful to be organized and be able to plan ahead of time. Ms.Mcmahon comments of these skills, “It is helpful to have experience in public speaking, there is a lot of walking around and standing to teach and help students. You have to work well with students and if you don’t like kids I advise you not to be a teacher.”
It’s also necessary to think about how much you will earn and if it will be enough to support your family. An average salary for a high school English teacher is $ 65,990.
This is enough to support a family. If you live in expensive cities like Chicago, New York, and Hollywood it might be more challenging to support your family.
To become an English teacher you need to be at school 5 days of the week, Monday-Friday. Most English teachers get to school around seven. As an English teacher you need to be in your classroom around this time so you can get ready and work on lesson plans. An average high school starts around 8:30. Students will start pouring into the classroom and will sometimes not want to follow directions. It is helpful to have assigned seating to keep order. Students will want to sit with friends but make them stay with the seating chart. After a while following directions will become routine and they will follow directions more often. Most schools have 6 periods,or classes per day.
Teachers don’t usually have lunch hours so at the times you don’t have classes you eat your lunch and grade papers. At the end of the day when students are dismissed many things can happen depending on your schedule. Some days you might have meetings to go over important decision. Other days you might be stuck in your classroom grading and making lesson plans. Some days (like Friday’s) you will not have anything to grade or you already finished lesson plans, so you can just go home. One other thing that can happen is clubs. Clubs are classes, sports, or teams that meet after school. You might be an instructor of a club that focuses on your degree such as the debate team or helping tutor students in the subject of English. Another possibility is things that you like to do but you don’t specialize in like woodwork or chess. Sometimes additional work at home is needed. Ms.Mcmahon adds, “I am a debate coach in the Decatur high school debate team and I help students work on their debating skills after school hours. I also go to debate tournaments with the team.”
Being an English teacher has some positives and negatives. A positive is that you get to work with students. Many people enjoy working with students and like watching them grow, but on the other hand, many people do not like working with students. Some reasons they might not like working with students is because students might be thought of as loud rude, disrespectful and messy. Sometimes they don’t turn in work and disobey you.
Another Positive is pursuing your dream. Many English teachers become English teachers because they love what they do. They love reading and working with students. They don’t think about how much they get paid but they think about how much they like their job. On the other hand, many people are English teacher because they are forced to by a parent or guardian that wants their child to follow in their footsteps. A downside for many is how much you get paid. Many tenagers think that what ever job you chose you get millions of dollars and can ride private yachts every week. No one except famous actors and presidents can afford that. Being a teacher will still let you go on a big vacation every year and some smaller ones, but not every week.
After all the aspects, becoming an English teacher is a great decision. If working with students and talking out loud is something you want to do than this is a great job for you. Teaching can be a hard job but is rewarding when you see how much the students have grown.
