If you’ve ever tried to buy a loaf in faltering French or tapas in stuttering Spanish, you’ll recognise the sense of achievement when you’re finally understood.
It’s that spring in your step as you triumphantly walk out of the bakery with a pain de campagne under your arm instead of being directed to the nearest pharmacy for some anti-inflammatories.
Because language is at the heart of everything we do, there’s always going to be a demand for those who can teach it in all its forms, from the spoken word to sign language, Morse code to Java.
Whereas language specialists might once have been restricted to teaching French or German, the opportunities today are many and various, as the vacancies on s1jobs show. Here are our top five.
English teacher
Along with maths teachers, English teachers are some of the most influential during those formative school years. Most of us can still remember the name of our English teacher but geography master? Forget it. You don’t have to go all Dead Poets Society and conduct your lessons standing on the desk but you do have to have a passion for language and a desire to pass it on.
Modern languages
How do you choose whether to teach French, Spanish, Italian, Urdu, Mandarin or Cantonese? Matching your favourite food to the language could be the answer. If you’re going to be leading a career’s worth of school trips to Germany, you’d better enjoy bratwurst. Closer to home there’s Gaelic and Scots . . . and, erm, Irn Bru and tattie scones?
ESOL
This is teaching ‘English for Speakers of Other Languages’. For lovers of acronyms there are also TESL, TEAL or TEFL. They’re all variations on the same theme: teaching children or adults whose first language is not English, such as Syrian refugees settling here in Scotland.
Lipreading Development Worker
Did you know lipreading classes are held all over Scotland, from Forres to Forfar, to develop and deliver lipreading to adults with hearing loss? There are regular Lipreading Teacher Training Courses (LTTCs) held in Scotland with the next one planned for January 2018.
Learning, Language and Communication (LLC) teacher
There are a range of titles for professionals trained to give support to children or vulnerable adults with additional support needs and this is one of them. They work in schools or out in the community, identifying ways to develop communication and language skills.
Translate your aspirations into a career in Education with vacancies from s1jobs.