England Big Ben

Many people have asked me about the career path that has taken me from a supervisory position on an international helpdesk, to teaching mainstream secondary foreign languages, to my current role here at netlogx. Or viewed another way my journey from the North West of England, to Spain’s deepest, darkest Andalucía, to my current adventure in Indianapolis, the Crossroads of America!

Indiana Welcome Sign

Admittedly this may appear fairly random on paper, nevertheless, I would argue that the majority of skills that I acquired back on the helpdesk helped me considerably during my teaching career and are proving even more useful in my current role at netlogx.

Spain's Flag

During my time on the helpdesk, I was fortunate to take part in several soft-skills courses which I was quickly able to put into practice within a dynamic business environment.

However, having always been intrigued by the notion of teaching and the opportunity of putting my love of languages into practice, six years ago I embarked upon a career teaching Spanish and French at both middle and high school levels. Below are some examples of the original soft-skills courses I attended for business and how using them somewhat out-of-context in teaching proved invaluable to me.

INTERPERSONAL SKILLS COURSE:

  • On a daily basis dealing with challenging students
  • Motivating classes, building a positive rapport & effective learning environment
  • Dealing with difficult parents on Parent Teacher Conferences
  • Managing Inter-Departmental relationships

COACHING AND MENTORING COURSE:

  • Guiding Gifted & Talented pupils
  • Guiding pupils with Special Educational Needs
  • Guiding under-achieving pupils

TIME MANAGEMENT COURSE:

  • Adhering to deadlines for administrative requests
  • Completing individual student reports, grading exams, essays, homework and class work in a timely manner

PRESENTATION SKILLS COURSE:

  • Presenting daily lessons to up to 33 (“too-cool-for-school”) teenage students
  • Presenting to a full year group of 100 students
  • Presenting at a Newly Qualified Teachers conference

APPRAISAL SKILLS COURSE:

  • One on One reviews with students to establish their progress & development
  • Delivering feedback to parents

PROJECT MANAGEMENT COURSE:

  • Setting up a ‘holiday Spanish’ course for other teachers
  • Running an extra-curricular Spanish course

LEADERSHIP SKILLS COURSE:

  • Mentoring an under-performing trainee teacher
  • Providing improvements & suggestions at departmental meetings
  • Classroom management (see earlier too-cool-for-school comment)

Now I feel like I have come full circle and I am relishing the opportunity to put all of my prior experience into practice in my current role. After a short time I realized I am reverse engineering the skills I acquired in teaching back into the business setting and here at netlogx this is being welcomed and thoroughly encouraged![/fusion_builder_column][/fusion_builder_row][/fusion_builder_container]