I love work!

The place where we work is fairly unimpressive from the outside. The red and yellow sign is about our school - and there are similar red and yellow signs on posts right down the street to make sure people can find us. The biggish windows to the left of the sign above the red awning are our classrooms.

Once you go in and up the lift (or stairs) to the second floor, you are met by one or more of the delightful young ladies at the front desk. This is Alice, who is always smiling and friendly.

Down the end of the hallway - through the glass door and turn to the right - is the teachers' office. We are four full-time and two part-time teachers and this is where we sometimes get together, where we can relax, or do preparation, or go on the computer.

Then there is the resource room. This little bookshelf contains a wealth of useful materials. In Australia we had much larger resources collections in schools - but a lot of it was out of date and useless for so many reasons. This little stash is well-organised and maintained and all useful!

But what about the actual classrooms, the coal-face, where the real work happens? They are bright and airy, with desks and bright red and yellow plastic chairs to seat up to about 15 students in a class. That's because our classes are all small. Here is a kids open class - that's why there are parents present. They have come for a demonstration lesson to see if they want to pour their hard-earned cash into having their precious offspring learn English here.

But neither Peter nor I are teaching kids classes now - it's a really nice change after years of teaching kids in Australia! Gone are the days of playground duty, money collections, policy writing, anecdotal records about kids' misbehaviour, writing school reports - all the blah stuff about teaching primary school that have nothing to do with your actual teaching skillls.

We teach two main types of classes. Conversational classes are for individuals who want to improve their English, and they are privately funded. Business classes are funded by corporations who want their employees to improve their English. Corporate classes are sometimes in the classrooms at our centre, and sometimes we go to their workplace and teach there.

So, why do I love my job? It is such a pleasant, friendly place to work. Not only because of my work colleagues, but the people I get to teach are so wonderful to get to know.