For around a year now, I’ve been full-time cover teaching Kindergarten and Primary level English, and I’ve really been enjoying it.
Originally, I decided to do cover teaching, in order to free up my time so that I could create my own Kindergarten English course. For the most part, my schedule now involves working on the weekends, and sometimes one or more weeknights. I spend the rest of my time learning teaching and researching methods and approaches for creating my own curriculum.
One of the things I most enjoy about being a cover teacher is that it gives me lots of opportunities to learn. I use my classes as an opportunity to try out lots of new games, activities and crafts. Because I teach different groups of students most weeks, its possible to see how they work with children of different abilities. I also get to see what works consistently with young children, and what isn’t so effective.
Another thing I enjoy about cover teaching, is that I get to teach and experience students at different levels of learning. One day I might be teaching students who are beginning Kindergarten 1, another, having a conversation with a Primary 5 student. Its fascinating to see how children develop over each of the levels.
Next, I get the chance to meet lots of different teachers at other language centres. One of the benefits for me, is that I can also read their lesson plans and learn from how they’ve taught their children. It helps me pick up new game and activity ideas, songs, crafts, and different ways of working with children. Interacting with different teachers also helps keep things fresh and interesting.
Being a cover teacher does have some shortcomings. The main shortcoming for me would be that the workloads can be inconsistent. Some months I have a lot of work, other months, not so much. If I get an opportunity to work a big chunk of time, like over the summer or Christmas, I generally take it. Then, I take my own holiday at a time other teachers are at work.
A related disadvantage would be that I often have to change my plans at short-notice, or keep myself available on weekends where I don’t have any work scheduled.
One of the other drawbacks is not having my own group of children that I work with over time, and therefore get to see them develop. Also, I tend to teach each class as a cover teacher for only a few lessons, so I teach a lot of different themes and topics, rather than building from one unit to the next. That said, I still enjoy teaching the different groups of children and find it very rewarding.
Overall, cover teaching has been a great opportunity for me to grow and develop my own skills as a teacher, and it has been a lot of fun. I would encourage all teachers to consider cover teaching, and enjoy all of the benefits it offers.
