Taking a year out?

I’m a little scared at the moment (and ill booooo).

I blogged a few days ago about finally accepting that probably the best career for me is teaching. I’ve been doing a bit of research on PGCEs and what type of languages currently have the most vacancies and I hit a brick wall…not literally of course.

Turns out that most PGCEs are language specific rather than just “Modern Foreign Languages”. I’m still a little confused as to whether this means that after the PGCE you will only be qualified for that combination of languages or whether you can teach other languages on top of those two. The combination of German and Italian is very rare to find as a PGCE. Most of the institutions that offer it are ones that I have no interest it. Cambridge and Bristol do offer it, however when examining teaching vacancies I realised how sort after French still is.

This got me worried. I know that Italian is the least taught language out of the top 4 (French, German, Spanish, Italian) but I suddenly remembered how German is being slowly filtered out of schools. Children supposedly prefer to learn Spanish. What if by the time I am a qualified teacher the need for German teachers is really low. My Italian isn’t exactly going to be a good back up is it.

So now I’m in the dilemma of do I or don’t I pick up my French again. As long as I’ve studied at least one of the languages to degree level the other can be at A level standard, which is fine for me I have a 6 in HL IB French. However a little part of me finds this all rather cheeky. How can I possibly teach French when I know as much as the Year 12 children in my class. I know from my experience here that the English teachers, here in Italy, who have never been to England are pretty awful and clueless. I do not want to be like them.

I’m starting to consider the idea of taking a year out between graduation and starting the PGCE to improve my French. Maybe do another teaching assistantship but this time with the British Council (although last I heard was that they might me doing away with it), which would both improve my French and give me more experience. Or study French as a foreign language at a university in France. Become an au pair???

I don’t know at the moment I’m a little antsy about starting my career late. I can already hear my body clock ticking. Sounds stupid when I’m only 21 years old, but my mum was 17 when I was born, 30 when she had her last kid. My 20 year old cousin is pregnant and engaged (as are umpteen people from my year at school…the figure is almost reaching 20). I’m really worried about running out of time but on the other hand I don’t want to be like my German teacher for GCSE who used to sweat and consult the dictionary every time I asked him a question. I want to be a role model for my pupils.

I thought deciding what I wanted to do in life would make this decision making easier :(