The Truth About English Training in Germany
There are many reasons why English native speakers find themselves living in Germany and over the years I’ve heard nearly every iteration of the story. For some it was a holiday that never really ended or a summer job that’s lasted several years. Many move for love or find love is the reason they decide to stay. For a few others its intentional, a work opportunity and a chance to try life in different culture before heading back home. The stories you hear among the English speaking community of Germany are various and differ in a thousand ways but three things will often resurface: Love, work and serendipity.
In my case it was a little of all three; I moved for love, better opportunities and along the way I had some luck, specifically that I found a profession I loved and was, by all accounts, quite good at. The job in question was English Teacher, although over the years that morphed into English trainer, then coach. Although the distinction between these roles is often paper thin, for many working in the field of corporate English training in Germany, they can mean the difference between stable employment, higher earnings and something many English trainers covert, a good reputation.
One of the central problems of teaching English in a foreign country is that it’s rarely taken as seriously as other more business focused types of training. It’s not perceived as a serious career for the simple reason that the barriers to entry are non-existent. Anyone with a few hundred Euros in their pocket can get a TEFL certificate, do a few online lessons and a weekend course and then advertise themselves as professional trainers. This is not to say that the industry is wholly populated by amateurs, far from it, but it does mean that any new English teacher in Germany is entering a diverse pool of potential employees, from backpackers looking to raise some quick money, to highly skilled veteran trainers. There are few industries I’ve ever worked in where the competition could be an expert with several decades of experience or some kid in an AC/DC t-shirt looking to make some beer money before moving on to Prague.
I was incredibly lucky to find a full-time position within a language company that invested time and resources in training and improving their employees. Many trainers are not so lucky. Often they are freelancers, competing for work as individuals or against colleagues within a larger company that doesn’t really care to invest in people who may not stick around. If these trainers wish to improve themselves, they often have to spend large amounts of their own money to do so. The power is very much in the hands of the owners of these companies and anyone who has worked in one of these firms has a horror story to tell. Some seem to manage their companies in the style of a feudal lord, or worse, a petty dictator. Favour is lavished on those who complain the least. I’ve read bullying emails, heard of trainers being humiliated in-front of their colleagues, and I’ve spoken to former trainers who were frozen out of their companies. They weren’t exactly fired, simply informed out of the blue they would no longer be getting any work for the foreseeable future.
Employee turnover can be high, but there’s always a ready supply of replacements coming, TEFL certificate in hand, to put themselves unknowingly through the wringer. This constant churn inevitably has an impact on quality of training. Customers may find themselves employing several different trainers, from several different companies, before finally landing on one that works. For example, I once took over a class where my predecessor had spent six weeks and a total of twelve hours of training showing participants the many features of their new iPhone. On another project, I discovered that one of the trainers had been teaching a group about cultural differences in companies by playing whole episodes of Mind Your Language, a 70s TV show from Britain. Customers paying serious money for training, only to discover their English trainer has been teaching a team of electrical engineers about Angry Birds obviously creates some trust issues. Many companies around Germany have had their hands burned and are now highly skeptical. This doesn’t make the lives of professional trainers any easier, freelancer or not.
Quality control will always be one of the hardest things to implement within the industry. Observation is one way to make sure trainers are doing their jobs properly, but this too can be problematic. Thanks to rudimentary TEFL courses, overly competitive freelancers and low levels of industry professionalism, many trainers are riddled with self-doubt. Imposter syndrome is rife among the trainer community and attempts to “check-up” on trainers can often lead to anxiety attacks, sleepless nights and terrible training sessions. An alternative to observation is to demand trainers fill in a never ending series of class plans to be handed into employers a week in advance. This is also quite useful for employers as they ensure the class is planned, but never have to pay for the pleasure, often dressing the process up as an important quality check, rather than what it actually is, unpaid labour.
Most trainers have a story to tell, but the majority I worked with over the last decade were dedicated, hardworking and highly creative. They wanted to improve themselves but more importantly they were dedicated to improving their groups. This will always be a draw for language teachers; watching participants go from barely speaking, to stringing sentences together, to finally becoming confident and capable communicators. Although I’m glad I’ve finally left the world of corporate training behind, I’ll never forget the many lessons it taught me, because if anything, I wouldn’t be where I am today without it.
Image Credit
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