Twice a week I teach a group of really nice lawyers who are trying to learn enough highly specialized language to pass the brand new fresh-out-of-the-box ILEC examination. It is the first year of this globally recognised test of legal English and my school, the biggest in Portugal, have chosen me to teach it. It is the first school in the country to open the class and I am the sole teacher. I have a true blank canvas to work on. I am in control of what they learn and when. I chose the course book. My director wants me to be ready to give seminars at the end of the year. It will look seriously good on my CV.
I am way out of my depth. As a student asked me today to compare the legal system in Portugal to the common law system in Britain, I completely invented a bogus answer with absolutely no bearing on reality.
I teach them for two hours straight and today I had just ten minutes after my previous class to plan my lesson. Let me reiterate that there are no resources for this course. No "1000 legal games" book and no time-wasting filler activities. In my wisdom, I spent 8 of the 10 minutes on the internet to find out the Liverpool score. (We won. Yay!!.)
I feel a little cheap and sullied by my lack of professionalism and I am convinced that, any day now, someone is going to realise and drag me from a clasroom with cries of "You're not a teacher! You're a fraud!" I am reassured by my colleagues that this feeling will remain with me for the rest of my career.
The mendacity.
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1 comment:
Hello! glad things are going relavitly ok.
Am SOOO jellous of the law teaching....am ashamed you couldn't do the comparison tho.
As for gap fillers - not found some way to play legal bingo yet....??!!!! - I'm disapointed in you...!
Keep up he drowning, and I'll speak to you soon.
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