Teaching at Seneca

It didn't take long for me to be impressed by the atmosphere at Seneca College. They had their curriculum clearly spelled out; I would be teaching General Oral Fluency - Level 4. Later, I would also teach conversation and writing courses.

Compared to my experience in Korea, I couldn't help but feel that I was in a much more professional environment. The teachers were real teachers, generally a fair amount older than I was. Some were public school teachers who did the ESL classes at night. Others had lived overseas, too (I remember one teacher who had lived in China speaking fluent Chinese in the office). I even met one woman, about my age, who had taught in Korea. We had some fun reliving the Korea experience together.

I was teaching in the Faculty of Continuing Education, so our students consisted of immigrants to Canada. (Conversely, international students would study English in the College's ESL program). The students were the really interesting feature of Seneca. A typical class had 20-25 students, and they came from all over the world. Israel, Iran, Nicaragua, Russia, China, Korea, Cuba, Romania, Greece, Italy, Japan, El Salvador, Pakistan, etc. What a difference this made in the teaching experience, having people from so many different backgrounds together in the same room, all with the common goal of learning English. I enjoyed this very much.

My first night of teaching (after battling traffic from the west end of Toronto to get to Seneca in the north-east section of the city) took me to an outdoor portable classroom. I think this caught me by surprise a little, but so be it. I was nervous as I walked up to the door of the classroom. As I walked in, I turned on the actor in myself, the same character who had made it through two-plus years of teaching in Korea. You see, I am a quiet person by nature, but I found that being in a classroom enabled a different character to emerge. I could seem like a very open, gregarious person. Truthfully, that's not really who I am. Unless I've been drinking. But that's another story.

The class lasted for three hours, and I would teach two of these classes per week for ten weeks. When I started, I was being paid $25.75/hour, which seemed very impressive. Again, though, it was just six hours per week.

At the end of each semester, I was required to give the students a written test. After final grades were calculated, I had to call each student and let them know if they passed or failed. This was a difficult thing to do because these people tried hard to succeed. But Seneca had clear rules and grade cut-offs to adhere to, so that made the task somewhat easier.

Overall, teaching at Seneca was a satisfying experience. It was totally different from teaching in Korea. I taught at Seneca for two years, and during that time I felt closer to being a real teacher than I ever had before.