By Abby Salvadori
The last four years have profoundly and perhaps irrevocably changed the world in which we live and our own personal landscapes. Synonyms of the verb ‘to change’ include ‘to alter’, ‘to modify’, ‘to transform’ and ‘to vary’, yet none seem to capture fully the enormity of the shared global experience brought on by the Covid-19 pandemic. The language we may need to describe this experience as well as its ongoing and lasting effects may not be found fully or adequately for quite some time yet.
And yet, those changes are deeply felt, even if we are not easily able to access the words we need to articulate them.
In the professional change that I was personally confronted with, I was fortunate. Even though the idea of doing my job online would have been anathema to me before it became a necessity, the simple fact that I could do my job this way during those unprecedented and intense months was extremely welcome, even if a little daunting.
Much of what my job involves - creating rapport and building relationships, fostering a relaxed learning space and connecting through the effort and enjoyment of using new language - is served by meeting in person, where non-verbal communication is as vital and message-rich as the verbal communication being practised. I was apprehensive that by meeting my students online, much of that natural contact could be lost, with detrimental consequences for their motivation and progress. On balance however, this was easily outweighed by the gratitude I felt as a freelancer for continuing to have work and for the flexibility and understanding that my students brought to the virtual classroom during those months.
Change brought the necessity of adaptation. How to create lesson materials which would be impactful via a shared screen? How to recreate the dynamics of pair and group speaking practice, so fundamental to increasing learner talking-time in a ‘normal’ training room setting? How to give ‘in the moment’ feedback without the physical presence of a whiteboard or flipchart, whilst not breaking the flow of the lesson with too many ‘share screen’ and ‘stop share’ functions to remember? Initially, there was trial and error and a degree of patience required on everyone’s part, but several lessons in, I realised that I had begun enjoying working in this way.
Creatively, I felt absorbed in developing new materials; technically, I was on a steep learning curve; practically, I was organising my day differently, spending less time travelling to my clients and more time reflecting on ways of doing my job effectively in this new environment. Using a structure which is a familiar learning challenge for my B2+ level students, I can say that I gradually got used to working in this way. When the opportunity to return to the training room finally arose, I was surprised by how strongly these new habits had become embedded and how the option of continuing to work online remained an appealing one.
A pivot away from the way I have worked for almost thirty years and towards creating my own online learning space.
I had been mulling over the idea of having a website for several years, but with regular clients, a long-held commitment to delivering the most tailored courses that I was able to create and a busy family life, the time to design one didn’t ever seem to arrive. Until finally, a few months ago, the time started feeling right.
The more I mulled it over, the more it began making sense. A more encompassing change, a pivot away from the way I have worked for almost thirty years and towards creating my own online learning space for people wishing to sign up to courses I am creating with broad learner needs in mind. That felt a real opportunity for professional change and a fresh challenge which might never have presented itself were it not for my experience since 2020, adapting to delivering language training online.
My job will remain supporting my students in assimilating new target language, so that they can meet their real-world communication needs in English with greater ease, confidence and success.
And so the decision was made. With the process of change very present in my thoughts, the first of my online courses will allow participants to extend their communicative skills on and around this core idea. Whichever professional field or industry my future students may work in and whether they are communicating in English with current or prospective clients, colleagues and acquaintance networks, it is highly likely that describing change, updating on and evaluating change and arguing in favour of or against change will form some of the language skills required. A natural and specific vocabulary, accurate use of key tenses and functional expressions will be introduced and practised, with personal contexts being highlighted. These language layers will all serve to develop communicative competence in framework tasks, which will reflect real-world language demands as closely as possible. My job will remain supporting my students in assimilating new target language, so that they can meet their real-world communication needs in English with greater ease, confidence and success.
My own experience with professional change over these last four years has been both challenging and revelatory. Out of the uncertainty, I have emerged with a renewed sense of direction and commitment to the job I have always loved doing. I welcome you to my website and invite you to sign up to the mailing list to receive news on upcoming training courses, as well as on the other elements of my professional life which I have brought together here.
Abby
Glossary for non-native English speakers
anathema: something you strongly dislike
to be outweighed by: to have less importance, benefit or significance than something else
to get used to +ing: to become familiar with something, so that you no longer feel that the thing is unusual or surprising
to become embedded: to become a permanent or noticeable feature (often an attitude or feeling)
to mull over an idea: to think about an idea for a long time before deciding what to do
encompassing: comprehensively including, addressing or dealing with all parts or aspects of something
a pivot: the most important thing which everything else is based on or arranged around
an acquaintance: a person you have met and know slightly, but not well
revelatory: a situation which tells you a lot that you did not previously know
renewed: something which grows again or is replaced after it has been destroyed or lost
° Definitions from the Collins Cobuild English Dictionary for Advanced Learners and www.dictionary.com
Photo by Paul Hoffmann