It is usually recomended to an English teacher to have a resume, a portfolio and to write a teacher’s essay where teacher’s goals, values, attitude to teaching and mission are described. I’ve tried to do this and here is the result. The following essay is a bit too long (well it’s an essay, not just a post on twitter :)) but I hope it may be useful for my students (or future students) and help them understand better who their teacher is.

To communicate successfully we must learn how to understand other people. It’s as simple as difficult. Sometimes it means that we must be more attentive and tolerant. But sometimes we simply need to understand the language that another person speaks.

«The more languages you know, the more human you are» as someone has said. I totally agree with this saying. The more languages you speak the better your ability to understand other people is.

As I remember I’ve always been interested in people: my friends, relatives, all the people that I saw around. I’ve always tried to imagine how do people feel, what do they think about? Why do some people act in a particular way, while others act in another way?

I think this curiosity, this interest in people explains my interest in languages. I believe that the language is the way of people’s thinking and feeling. People of different nationalities have different characters, different habits, different attitude to life and death, they express their feelings in different ways. Sociologists have proved that it’s not a myth. For example, the Italians are really very energetic and extrovert in opposite to Asian people, who are more introvert and intuitive.

I think the best way to understand a character of a particular person is to learn his or her language. Language is inseparably linked with culture, history and contemporary life of the country. We cannot learn a language without learning different facts about this country, it’s people, it’s writers and artists, it’s food and traditions. And that makes learning and teaching English very interesting.

I have said «learning and teaching» because I learn every time I teach. I learn language, because there is always something that I didn’t know before. I learn how to communicate with people. I learn how to teach. I believe that only a person who likes learning can teach others.

I also enjoy teaching English because I like to see how my students step by step achieve success, learn something that they didn’t know before, learn how to use this unique and powerful instrument – language. Result is the one of my major values.

I’m glad when my students go to another country on holiday and talk to foreigners with a sense of confidence.

I’m happy when my students start to read books in English. That means that they have become more autonomous learners and I’ve made learning English interesting for them.

I’m glad when my students get good mark at English lessons at school. This is a success!

My another value is creativity. It makes me feel happy to see my student’s joy and surprise when they create something in English: a poem, a composition, a presentation. I believe that everyone should express his ideas and share them with other people.

What qualities help me to teach people? First of all I think teachers must be leaders and motivators. I always try to make my lessons interesting, to personalize teaching. And I always try to be an authority for my students but at the same time I can co-operate with people.

Interest, creativity and persistence are things that I motivate  my students to develop. I believe that every one can achieve great results in learning English.