English teacher. Nice to meetcha. Blog post #5: It's been a while by Shannon Norman

It’s been a while…by Shannon Norman

Excuse me while I apologise for this delayed blog post. It’s outrageous, I know. But as with most things, there is one simple reason – “life”.

We all get carried away sometimes, right? It’s not always a bad thing though. So what’s been keeping me busy? Besides teaching General English, preparing students for IELTS and having fun in one-to-one classes, I’ve been training. You know, working out my legs and arms, firming my butt and getting summer-ready.

Pfft, if only I wasn’t such a bad liar. What I actually mean by “training” is something completely different.  I guess I should explain for the sake of the truth.

About two months ago, the owner of the school and my mentor, Marian, approached me with a rather big, daunting and thought-provoking question:

“Will you take over the TEFL course from me?”

Now as you can imagine the situation was quite intense. Picture me and Marian sitting comfortably on Oprah’s soft sofas. The cameras are rolling; the bright lights are shining on us as we sit in the middle of the stage. Oprah is holding my hand for support and whispers under her breath, “You can do this, Shannon...” The audience, on the other hand, is sitting on the edge of their seat.  There’s a lady who is bouncing her leg up and down as if there was some sort of electrical impulse moving through her body – the wait is killing her. What will I say? A man in the audience gets up. The lights now glaring in his face, making him look all heroic and what not.“Answer us, Shannon! What are you going to say? This experience could change things forever,” he shouts. Oprah calms him down and looks at me and smiles…

So what did I say? I said I would think about it because it was quite an important decision to make. Marian gave me the thumbs up and off I went. The problem I have (and I know a few people who might be nodding their heads furiously right now) is that I struggle to make decisions. Don’t ask me what chocolate I want, and please, don’t ask me to order from a menu when there are a billion things to choose from. Also, don’t ask me, “What do you want to do tonight?” because I DON’T KNOW.

Anyway after copious amounts of brain farts I realised that this was not even something I needed to think about;  I should just say ‘yes’ and grab the bull by its horns. Why would I not want to ride this beast of opportunity? Why would I let someone else take it from me? 

Then it was show time! Marian needed an answer. My heart was racing. Not because I was scared, but because I was excited.

I said, “Yes!”

Marian handing over TEFL student Julita to Shannon (It's official now!)

And with that, the red curtains close. Picture a man trying to find the opening of the curtains. He eventually makes his way through. He feels quite stupid for not realising where the two curtains meet. He stands to the left of the stage and says, “That’s all we have for tonight, folks. If you want to find out more about Shannon’s experiences then keep your eyes peeled for the next show.”

There you have it, straight from the horse’s mouth. Catch my next blog where I will share some valuable lessons learnt in and out of the TEFL classroom. Who knows, maybe Oprah lets me down and I find myself talking to Dr Phil next time. 

Shannon is looking forward to some real fans.