Work is Picking Up
The first week of the year was unexpectedly busy! As Germans began trickling back into their offices, many seemed to realize, "Hey! It's 2013. Maybe I should learn English!" And the demand for teachers has risen - not only at Berlitz.
On January 2, I had an interview in Stuttgart with a nice, frizzy woman at Educom, a company that was founded in 2006 by ex-Berlitzers. The methods are very similar, and they were in desperate need of someone to cover the Northern Stuttgart area (BINGO!), so she contacted me and asked if I'd be interested. The interview went well, and I got the job, so I am officially employed by to English schools now.Yay for freelancing!
Secondly, a family friend asked if I'd like to do a translation of their product line brochure for 2013. Absoultely! Money is money, and marketing in English is easy for me, yeah? Well, in the next week I have to figure out how to cleverly & eloquently describe about 20 different professional cleaning products - from floor scrubbers (technical term, of course... ha!) to a magic mop that can freestand in the middle of a room (that particular product has its own mascott - a wizard with stars coming from his fingers). I compared what translators in the area charge for their work, took a look at the material, and promised to complete the job by January 18th. And they'll pay me €20 per hour!
Last but not least, I've been getting more and more requests for English tutoring. As of Wednesday, I have a new student named Burcu (pronounced "buwr-choo") - her parents are Turkish. Her English is almost perfect, she's just nervous to use it. So we're drilling introductions and small talk, and basically conversing for an hour and a half. And I get paid to do this! To simply talk to interesting people and build their vocabulary/correct their grammar.
Teaching English inevitably brings with it humorous mistakes. My favorite so far have been from my Thursday class: two sales guys in the automotive industry. "This is a man who wears blue skirts every day," to which his colleage responded, "Well, I did go to Scotland last year..." At another point, the younger guy was giving me a mock sales spiel for a product and said "You need our brake parts so that you can be saved." I hastily explained that "safe" is the word he was looking for, and that"saved" has to do with Jesus. This is the same man who, during a hospital vocabulary exercise, insisted on being the "woman doctor". I said he was only allowed to take on that role if he could correctly pronounce "gynecologist." He couldn't.
On January 2, I had an interview in Stuttgart with a nice, frizzy woman at Educom, a company that was founded in 2006 by ex-Berlitzers. The methods are very similar, and they were in desperate need of someone to cover the Northern Stuttgart area (BINGO!), so she contacted me and asked if I'd be interested. The interview went well, and I got the job, so I am officially employed by to English schools now.Yay for freelancing!
Secondly, a family friend asked if I'd like to do a translation of their product line brochure for 2013. Absoultely! Money is money, and marketing in English is easy for me, yeah? Well, in the next week I have to figure out how to cleverly & eloquently describe about 20 different professional cleaning products - from floor scrubbers (technical term, of course... ha!) to a magic mop that can freestand in the middle of a room (that particular product has its own mascott - a wizard with stars coming from his fingers). I compared what translators in the area charge for their work, took a look at the material, and promised to complete the job by January 18th. And they'll pay me €20 per hour!
Last but not least, I've been getting more and more requests for English tutoring. As of Wednesday, I have a new student named Burcu (pronounced "buwr-choo") - her parents are Turkish. Her English is almost perfect, she's just nervous to use it. So we're drilling introductions and small talk, and basically conversing for an hour and a half. And I get paid to do this! To simply talk to interesting people and build their vocabulary/correct their grammar.
Teaching English inevitably brings with it humorous mistakes. My favorite so far have been from my Thursday class: two sales guys in the automotive industry. "This is a man who wears blue skirts every day," to which his colleage responded, "Well, I did go to Scotland last year..." At another point, the younger guy was giving me a mock sales spiel for a product and said "You need our brake parts so that you can be saved." I hastily explained that "safe" is the word he was looking for, and that"saved" has to do with Jesus. This is the same man who, during a hospital vocabulary exercise, insisted on being the "woman doctor". I said he was only allowed to take on that role if he could correctly pronounce "gynecologist." He couldn't.
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