Sarah O’Connor has been teaching at City Language School Dublin for over one year now and we are very happy to have her here as part of our team, or as she calls it, family. After her morning class last Friday we sat down with her for a quick chat. Here she talks about her love of teaching, poetry and why she is happy working at City Language School.
Where are you from?
I grew in County Meath which is just next to Dublin.
How long have you been teaching English?
Well I’ve been involved in teaching for about fifteen years. I was a yoga teacher for years and I taught English abroad for a long time too. I loved it so when I came back I decided to do my CELTA and got that over two years ago so I’ve been teaching permanently since then.
Do you like teaching?
I love it, yes. I’m a bit of a performer. I write poetry and I play in a band so I think when you’re teaching you can bring elements of that to the classroom. Teaching and performing feed each other. It’s also a bit like a mindfulness meditation too because you just completely forget about everything else when you’re in the classroom and you’re just totally focussed on the students and the immediate question in mind whether it’s grammar or pronunciation or whatever it might be.
Iddy biddy ditty committee it’s jazz performance It’s quite strange you never really know what’s going on.
Do you like Oscars?
I was actually offered a full-time job in another school a few months ago and I actually left Oscars for a while but I really missed it. I missed Oscars. There is great camaraderie in the teacher’s room. I love the sense of family in the school and I think that the students appreciate that. It’s not a huge school so it’s not impersonal and after a while you get to know nearly all the students’ faces and by the time they get to Advanced level, you’re almost friends with them.