Secondary Teaching in General (And Languages Teaching)

Togepi

Leaving Cert student here with a couple of questions about teaching:

1.) Is it difficult to be a teacher if you're quite introverted?

2.) Does disciplining usually take up a lot of your time? I'd love to teach, but the one thing that puts me off is having to deal with students who hate the subject and have no desire to co-operate in class. I can't imagine myself being great at controlling a class, but I assume that I'd be a lot more confident about this in a few years.

3.) Is the job as difficult or stressful as it seems?

And with regards to languages, I'd love to teach French, and one of the following:

Spanish
English
Japanese
Irish

4.) Would it be worth my while doing a degree in French and Spanish/Japanese? Around 250 people did Japanese for the Leaving last year, and around 4,000 did Spanish (almost 27,000 did French - link). Would it be very difficult to get a job as a Spanish/Japanese teacher?

5.) If I did these languages, I'd probably do French and Spanish to degree level, and Japanese for one year. Would I then be qualified to teach Japanese to Leaving Certs, seeing as it's taught at a much lower level than the other languages?

6.) Any suggestions of the best place to do a degree in languages are also welcome!

(Also, I haven't done Spanish or Japanese for the Leaving, I just love languages and would love to learn either or both.)

Miss Lockhart

I'll just address a couple of your points OP.

Togepi wrote: »

Leaving Cert student here with a couple of questions about teaching:

1.) Is it difficult to be a teacher if you're quite introverted?

I think you need to clarify what you mean by introverted.

I am introverted in the sense that I prefer spending time alone most of the time than spending time in groups. I am not shy though or lacking confidence. I do not find teaching difficult from that perspective.

If you mean shy and perhaps lacking confidence, then you may find it dauting to stand on front of a group of teens who are very often judgemental.

Togepi wrote: »

2.) Does disciplining usually take up a lot of your time? I'd love to teach, but the one thing that puts me off is having to deal with students who hate the subject and have no desire to co-operate in class. I can't imagine myself being great at controlling a class, but I assume that I'd be a lot more confident about this in a few years.

Discipline takes a lot of time. That doesn't necessarily mean you spend your whole time giving out - but you do spend a lot of time monitoring for issues and dealing with low-level disruption, hopefully avoiding getting to the actual "disciplining" stage.

Dealing with students who hate your subject is a fact of life. You can try all you want to engage and inspire them but there will always be some who just don't like it, and some of those will be unco-operative.

I never wanted to be a teacher originally, and I would never have thought I could deal with unruly teens, but I don't find it a problem now - so yes, you may feel more confident in future.

Togepi wrote: »

4.) Would it be worth my while doing a degree in French and Spanish/Japanese? Around 250 people did Japanese for the Leaving last year, and around 4,000 did Spanish (almost 27,000 did French - link). Would it be very difficult to get a job as a Spanish/Japanese teacher?

French would be a good subject to have - it is probably the most common language taken at the moment. It would be nearly impossible to get a Spanish/Japanese job. French/Spanish would probably be a fairly good combination and I think having Japanese would be a great addition. Of course, all of this comes with the usual advice that getting any job in teaching is currently very very hard, and the future doesn't look any better at the moment.

Togepi

Miss Lockhart wrote: »

I think you need to clarify what you mean by introverted.

I am introverted in the sense that I prefer spending time alone most of the time than spending time in groups. I am not shy though or lacking confidence. I do not find teaching difficult from that perspective.

If you mean shy and perhaps lacking confidence, then you may find it dauting to stand on front of a group of teens who are very often judgemental.

Yeah I meant just preferring to spend time alone rather than being in groups, as in would it be draining to be in a classroom all day?

With regard to being shy, that might be a slight problem, but I don't think it'd cause any major hassle.

Miss Lockhart wrote: »

I never wanted to be a teacher originally, and I would never have thought I could deal with unruly teens, but I don't find it a problem now - so yes, you may feel more confident in future.

I would actually like to teach, it's just that the unco-operative students would put me off. Then again, I don't think many people my age would be too comfortable going into a classroom and trying to maintain discipline. Experience would obviously help a bit anyway.

Miss Lockhart wrote: »

French would be a good subject to have - it is probably the most common language taken at the moment. It would be nearly impossible to get a Spanish/Japanese job. French/Spanish would probably be a fairly good combination and I think having Japanese would be a great addition. Of course, all of this comes with the usual advice that getting any job in teaching is currently very very hard, and the future doesn't look any better at the moment.

I'd definitely do French, and then I'd probably do Spanish and maybe study Japanese as well. Irish or English would be other options, but I've gone off Irish a lot lately so I don't think I'd like to study it in college.

Moody_mona

It all comes down to how many university credits you study for each subject for the final two years of your degree. It would be rare to come out with more than two subjects, especially languages. You may be able to study Open University modules to top up your degree and qualify in more languages - this is something you should look into. Also, and I'm open to correction as I'm not a language teacher, I think you may need to live abroad as part of the Teaching Council conditions, just if you're thinking about two or three languages, bear it in mind.

Inspector Coptoor

Moody_mona wrote: »

It all comes down to how many university credits you study for each subject for the final two years of your degree. It would be rare to come out with more than two subjects, especially languages. You may be able to study Open University modules to top up your degree and qualify in more languages - this is something you should look into. Also, and I'm open to correction as I'm not a language teacher, I think you may need to live abroad as part of the Teaching Council conditions, just if you're thinking about two or three languages, bear it in mind.

Technically it's based on your entire degree.
Not just the last two years.

Given you generally do 60 credits per year for 4 years and assuming equal weighting of subjects, If you did 4 subjects in 1st year, 3 of the 4 in the 2nd year & 2 of those 3 in 3rd and fourth year, the break down would look like this:

Subject 1 in first year. 15 credits out Of 240 which is 6.25%

Subject 2 in 1st & 2nd year. 15 credits in 1st year, 20 credits in 2nd year works out as 35/240 = 14.6%

Subjects 3 & 4 in 1st, 2nd, 3rd & 4th year would be 15 + 20 + 30 + 30 or 95/240 credits giving you 39.6% for the two subjects you bring to 4th year.

Current Teaching Council regulations stipulate that you have a minimum of 30% of a subject in your degree.

Therefore, if you did Spanish, French, English & Japanese, and brought French & Spanish to 4th year, they are the only two you'd be allowed teach unless you pursued the avenues outlined by the poster above.

Togepi

As far as I know, you can do French, Spanish and Japanese for four years through Applied Languages in UL. Would that qualify you to teach all three? (I think Japanese would get less hours, as it's optional to do a third language, and you can only do it as your third language.)

Inspector Coptoor

Togepi wrote: »

As far as I know, you can do French, Spanish and Japanese for four years through Applied Languages in UL. Would that qualify you to teach all three? (I think Japanese would get less hours, as it's optional to do a third language, and you can only do it as your third language.)

You'd have to ring UL or go through their prospectus for all the details.
But my reading of it would be no, just French & Spanish.
I don't think there'd be enough content there if its that minor a subject, even for 4 years.

I went through a science degree, not languages.