Teacher of the Intake – October to December 2016

We are very pleased to announce that our “Teacher of the Intake” for the October to December 2016 courses is Javier Paz, one of our Spanish teachers in Brighton. To say that Javier is worshipped by his students is not an exaggeration! His lessons are always engaging, developmental and by creating a supportive atmosphere Javier’s students find they progress faster than they had expected. For these reasons, along with consistently excellent feedback, Javier is the Teacher of the Intake for October. Find out a little bit more about Javier and what he says about being a teacher for Cactus:

Teacher of the Intake – Javier Paz

How long have you been teaching for Cactus?

I started teaching for Cactus in 2014 so I’ve been teaching for Cactus for more than two years.

What do you enjoy most about teaching?

It’s quite difficult to answer this question because there are quite a few things I like about teaching Spanish for adults. Learning a language is very challenging and demanding because it requires a lot of skills working together, plus time and a lot of effort and patience. Because of that, an adult person who decides to learn a language deserves all my respect.

In order to achieve their goals they expect me to help them and, at the same time, I expect the best of them.
From my own experience, the more comfortable and engaged my students are, the more and better they work and learn. So what I enjoy most about teaching is creating and being part of this ambience where everybody works hard and has fun by doing our best.

What keeps you motivated as a teacher?

The commitment of my students, their progress, their challenges and their feedback. And the tapas/beers we have after finishing our courses.

How would you describe your Cactus students?

Hardworking (although, I have to say, some of them are a bit lazy with their homework), easy-going and basically, great people. Honestly. I couldn’t be more grateful to them.

What do you enjoy about working for Cactus?/Why do you work for Cactus?

For me, working for Cactus was a new type of experience because, although I had been teaching for quite a few years, I had never worked for such a big company. And, to be honest, I was a bit afraid of that because I thought huge organisations didn’t care about their employees. But, fortunately, I couldn’t have been more wrong! It might sound like I’m exaggerating but from the first time I entered the main office I felt at home. And since then, I’ve regularly kept in touch with different people who work in the administration (some of them are, at the same time, my students ) and other teachers and the atmosphere is really cool. Absolutely nothing to do with what I had expected.

Another thing I love about teaching for Cactus is the freedom the company gives us as a teachers. Obviously, we have coordinators who make observations regularly but in such a professional way that I never felt pressured, “observed” and that is very important not just for me as a teacher but also, and fundamentally, for the students.

And, in addition, being part of such an important organisation gives us the opportunity to travel and teach languages almost anywhere in the world and this is a great advantage if you like teaching as much as travelling.

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