If all goes according to plan, this will be the final week of my 5-year IELTS teaching career. I’ve finally put together a solid curriculum and have found a protégé to pass my class on to.
I’m retired, technically. Lots of mixed emotions. I guess it’s time to look back at the whole journey here, from the day I began teaching English until now.
The Early Days of Teaching
Like many Vietnamese students, I did private tutoring on the side to earn some pocket money. I actually started off tutoring maths since my high school major is maths.
After entering university, my maths started to become rusty. I was also studying English intensely around this time, and so I switched to English tutoring.
In 2012, I registered at a tutoring agency to find students. I still remember riding my bicycle over 10 kilometres to Pedagogy University (ĐH Sư Phạm) to pay a registration fee. It was a run-down office in a back alley, and the owner wasn’t very friendly at all.
The agency ended up connecting me to a couple of students. One was a doctor who lived on Minh Khai street, and the other one was a student in 12th grade. They both wanted to study English at a very basic level.
During this period, my friends also recommended me to several other students. In total, I think I did 1-1 tutoring for 5 people over the course of 2 years.
In 2013, as I began working at Cinnamon (a Japanese tech start-up), I was assigned the side job of improving the English of the team members. I ended up teaching them TOEIC for a while.
That’s about it. 2014 came and my journey with IELTS began.
2014: The Beginning of IELTS Teaching
Towards the end of 2014, I moved out with Phong to work on our Fit.n.Grit project which had yet to generate any revenue. Phong was working full-time at DB Schenker a German logistics company, and I was studying for my ACCA accounting degree. I didn’t really have any money, so I had to look for a source of income.
I applied to a bunch of positions. I interviewed for a marketing position at a media company, a teaching assistant job at British Council, a translating job at an agency, and a few other teaching jobs at various English centres. None really led anywhere, either because of schedule conflict, because I got rejected, or because the salary offered was below my expectations.
Finally, in September 2014, I saw a job posting for a teacher position by Mr Tú, the founder of the current Izone. Back then it was known as “Chia sẻ chiến lược học thi IELTS”. He was looking for a part-time teacher. I sent an email asking for a job, and got an interview quickly after.
The interview went well. Mr Tú was a very friendly and down to earth guy who sported a chill and relaxed attitude, unlike the overly formal atmosphere of the previous interviews that I had attended.
A couple of days later, I got the news that I was accepted. I still remember distinctly that moment; I was having dinner at my grandparents’, and the news came. I immediately called Ngọc in excitement. I got a job as an actual teacher! I’d be teaching a whole class now, instead of just 1-1.
And that was it. I began my training, and in late October I took charge of my first IELTS class ever. The class is called VL33. I remember my heart pounding like a machine gun as I walked through the door to the first session. Fortunately everything went well. That class still is probably the most memorable class of my career to date. You really can’t ever forget your first time aye? I still keep in touch with some of the students actually.
The Years At Izone
From 2014 to 2017, I taught many classes at Izone. It was the only way for me to have an income as we still made zero money from the Fit.n.Grit project throughout those years.
(This is for another post, but looking back it still amazes me to no end that we managed to muddle through these whole 3 years absolutely penniless…)
From 2014 to 2016 I taught the 5.0 – 6.0 class. From 2016 onwards I was promoted to the highest level, the Advanced 6.0 – 7.0 class.
Many, many memories from this chapter in my life. I experimented and developed the curriculum for my class, worked with and learned a lot from some amazing people, and really refined my teaching skills.
Moving On With Ha Phong IELTS
In May 2017, I taught my final classes at Izone. It was around this time that Phong and I decided we had to stop with this fitness pipe dream and to move on to something that actually made money.
Naturally, with the experience I had accumulated at Izone and with Phong also possessing solid English skills, the obvious direction for us was to start an English centre.
The rest is pretty much history. Phong and I did everything: developed syllabuses for our classes, did the marketing, the sales, built a website, renovated the classrooms, recruited staff for the centre.
So. Many. Memories. It’d take days to write down everything that happened in this period. The brief version is that we hustled hard, taught classes after classes, refined the curriculum, and trained our teachers plenty along the way to the point where they’d be ready to take over our classes.
Fast forward to September 2019, and here we are. The first Advanced class started without me, for the first time. I was definitely nervous seeing ‘my class’ taught by another person, but hell, I had full confidence in my successor.
In the end, everything turned out fine. The ‘new’ teacher (not exactly new, since he’s been with us for 2 year) did a fantastic job, which definitely was a huge relief. He sticks to my course materials and adds his own flavour in.
In a way, I think he is an even better teacher than I am since he can focus 100% of his energy on teaching and supporting students, while I’m often busy with other stuff.
I had the farewell meal with my final class on the 9th of October. And then that’s it.
Final Thoughts
I spent five years of my life teaching the same class and developing the curriculum for it. In a way, it feels like my freaking baby. I wrote every word of that Writing and Speaking coursebook.
I think I must have taught over 1,000 students. I still remember every one, which class they were in. I’ve directly crossed paths with one thousand people, and have made an impact — no matter how trivial — on their life, in a way. Pretty wild to think about it that way.
Technically, I’m still too young to retire. But well, I guess I’ve been doing it long enough. Who knows if I might be teaching again in the future? When one chapter closes, another one opens. Time for a new chapter in my life.