Scribbling #30: That's My Business

Those who can't do, teach.  Well, that's how the saying goes anyway.  Those who get made redundant from a factory job in a foreign country also have to teach, so to me that phrase is a very sweeping statement.  Happily, all is not lost for prospective EU types that wish to work within Slovakia, as they can get a trade licence quite easily, if they fulfil the criteria of not being a mass murderer and don't mind going through the hassle of obtaining one in the first place.  For Canadians and other exotics, the process is similar to varying degrees.

What I had to do first was to get a notarised statement of saying that I, JC, has lived in an English-speaking country for more than ten years so that I, JC, could teach there in the first place.  Never mind the actual teaching qualification in the first place, of course, but so long as you've lived there for that period of time, that's okay.  The next part of it is showing that you do not have a criminal record.  According to the British Embassy, they don't send criminal records overseas to people like me, so instead you have to write out another statement stating that, no sir, I have not got a criminal record.  This is given to the guy at the Embassy, he changes the wording a bit, and then you have to read it out loud like an oath.  This is one of the weirder experiences that I had to deal with in Slovakia, as having to state that you do not have a British criminal record to a Slovak who is behind an inch or so of bulletproof glass was rather ironic.  Seventy-ish euros were paid, and I got a bit of paper saying that I didn't have a record.  It was nice paper though, presented in an equally nice folder.

The other weird experience that we had to get used to was that the people at Sala's council were nice.  In all of Mrs. C's experience, the pen-pushers were always brisk, prejudiced and in some cases downright mean.  But this bunch were nice.  They chatted amiably to Mrs. C, surprised that there was a Brit and a Canadian standing in front of them speaking broken and fluent Slovak respectively.  After wondering whether or not to send me to Bratislava in order to do some more paperwork, one of them stated that, "no, he's our Brit!".  After giving the payment in stamps, I had my licence within a week, saying that I could teach, with the tax card following along soon after.

And, I like teaching.  Thank goodness.  Instead of standing around waiting for something to happen, I'm standing, teaching young and old minds examples of the English language.  For me, it was something I wanted to do when I was here, but circumstances... At any rate, I gain more experience everyday, and it's something I'm getting good at, since you're re-learning your own language in different ways.  Conditionals? Fine.  Passive voice? No problem.  Students switching from Slovak teachers to a native speaker?  Ummm.... we're working on that. :-)