Pilar, Argentina
My name is Pilar. I am a teacher from Argentina with four years of experience and I work at International House Buenos Aires.
These past four years I experienced the challenges that most novice teachers usually face: ‘Are my lessons engaging enough? Did my students learn something today? Is this going to help them in the future?’. Fortunately, I’ve been very lucky and got to work with really supportive colleagues. I find consulting grammar reference books and joining webinars and courses an excellent way to keep our knowledge fresh and ourselves up to date with the latest trends in teaching. But so far, nothing has been as useful as consulting fellow teachers on how to go over a tricky situation, how to teach a complex structure, or how to keep learners on the edge of their seats.
Back in 2020 I created @teachersofenglish_, an instagram account where I started sharing activity ideas and resources I found useful. With time, I started getting messages with questions that were similar to those I usually asked my colleagues. Being a relatively inexperienced teacher my reply was often ‘I’m not sure . . . why don’t we ask other teachers what they would do via Instagram stories?’. So many teachers took the time to write such detailed answers, tips and bits of advice that it usually took me about an hour to post everything they had shared. Now I get messages saying, ‘Hi Pilar, can you ask the community how they . . .?’.
With this I want to point out how supportive teachers are, thank those who have taken the time to help me and others, and encourage those who are starting out to seek help when they need it, knowing there’ll always be someone willing to lend a hand.
