Your Teaching Experience For the first two weeks of your contract, the school will provide you with a driver to take you to and from the school. You’ll arrive at the school around 11AM on your first day. You’ll be introduced to the Director of Studies (DoS), who will then introduce you to all the staff. Don’t expect to remember all the names on the first day; it takes time. After the introductions we will take you for lunch so you can try some local delicacies. There is an abundance of food stalls and restaurants around the school. Once lunch has finished the DoS will explain your schedule. Your schedule for the first week will be mostly observations. This gives you an excellent opportunity to watch other teachers at work. It also gives you the opportunity to get ideas for activities you can do with your classes. While explaining your schedule, the DoS will also show you the various resources that are available such as student and teacher books, computer system, supplementary materials, audios, and videos. We have a vast amount of extra resource books from grammar made simple to fun class activities. We will expect you to start teaching the following week on a reduced schedule of about 12 to 15 hours. Prior to your first lesson, the DoS or Senior Teacher will do a lesson planning training session with you. We will give you around 4 weeks to feel settled with all aspects of classroom management and course material. You will probably have 1 or 2 classes per day and will be observed by a Senior Teacher or DoS on two or three occasions. This might sound a little nerve wracking but all the observations are there for you to develop as a teacher.After all your observations, the Senior Teacher or DoS will sit down with you and go through your lesson. This is a perfect opportunity to see how your class went through someone else’s eyes. You can expect to be observed 3-4 times during the first month of your teaching. Once you start to feel more settled and find your own unique teaching style, the observations will come down to around 2 per month. All these observations are not to keep an eye on you but they are there to bring out the best in you as a first year teacher. During your first year here a heavy emphasis is placed on your development as a teacher through observations and positive feedback. This training system is supplemented with monthly workshops on various subjects such as games, lesson planning, class room management, and grammar. The key to your success in the ESL profession will lie in your practice of the new skills you will have attained during your first year.