Authorpreneur Dashboard – Clara Harland
Escape From The Big Green Button
Literature & Fiction
Emma Whitfield sits in an airport on a typical day of fog and drizzle and wonders how she has ended up there. Six months earlier, after two years of searching for a decent job and with only a folder of rejection letters to show for it, she makes a sudden decision to ditch her demoralising photocopying career and run away to Prague to become a teacher, thinking this might kick-start her life again. Floundering down this path, she winds up living with a punky Californian, meets Dan The Scary Bouncer Tutor who looks as if he should be working the door of a club rather than training teachers, and batters away the constant innuendos of the eccentric scarf-wielding Charles. Soon after, she lands herself back in a UK summer school where the gorgeous Xavi catches her eye and she ends up teaching a rowdy bunch of Italian teenagers who are more interested in football and kissing one another than learning any English. This is a story of ex-Communist tower blocks, radioactive goulash, energetic games of ‘Bananas’, mishaps, general embarrassment and one girl’s quest to overcome an innate shyness and find some direction in life along the way.
Book Bubbles from Escape From The Big Green Button
Bananas
All around the UK, summer schools are now starting to draw to a close so I thought it would be an appropriate moment to share this Book Bubble. Sometimes known in the world of teaching English as a Foreign Language as 'Sausages', the game of 'Bananas' has proven to be one of the most successful activities I've used in a classroom. I felt that I couldn't write a book based around the diversity and eccentricity of EFL without including it. At this point in the book, Emma, a twenty-something who is trying to escape a life of photocopying by becoming a teacher, is back from her training course in Prague. She is now immersed in the intensity of a residential summer school; planning lessons into the small hours, dealing with her rowdy students, and steadfastly trying to ignore her growing attraction to one of the group leaders. Luckily, games like 'Bananas' are providing a welcome distraction.
Students, Ducks, Horses and a Lack of Road Sense:
On her return from Prague, Emma, a shy twenty-something who is trying to escape a life of photocopying, starts teaching at one of the many residential summer schools in the UK. Handed a group of rowdy Italian teenagers who have more interest in football and kissing one another than learning any English, she embarks on a month of chaos; planning lessons into the small hours, teaching her reluctant students, supervising discos, and suppressing her own growing crush on one of the group leaders. This book bubble describes the unique experience of trying to drag a hundred students around London in the middle of the busy summer without losing a few strays along the way. One of my main inspirations when writing the book was to make my reader laugh and this type of experience provides an insight into the chaotic yet often funny life of a teacher.
One Big Fuddley Heap of Confusion
Emma, a shy twenty-something who is trying to escape a life of photocopying in London, has embarked on a teacher-training course in Prague. This is the point at which she finds herself confronted with the prospect of teaching some grammar to a roomful of Czechs whose knowledge of the workings of English is, she suspects, probably better than her own. If anyone has ever been in a classroom and not known what the heck was going on, or has had to squeeze their brain through a series of barriers in order to understand something, then they are likely to relate to this. Add on the pressure of having to teach the information while simultaneously attempting to leap the obstacle of shyness, and a picture of what this situation might feel like begins to form. Will 'Showtime' be a success or will Emma be discovered as a 'Grammatical Fraud'?
Dawning realisation...
In this extract, Emma has just started her teacher training course in Prague and has been asked to teach a short lesson of her choice to her fellow trainees. She is a shy character who has realised that her main motivation for doing this course was to run away from the job she hated in London. It has only just dawned on her that part of becoming a teacher is the requirement to stand in front of a room full of people and speak. Unfortunately, previous experience has demonstrated that this is a skill she does not possess, or at least not without breaking out in a sweat and turning an attractive shade of burgundy. As a formerly shy person, I wanted to capture the feeling of sheer panic some face when dealing with a situation like this. Emma is not only escaping The Big Green Button, but is also escaping shyness. The determination to achieve this is one of the themes of the book.
How it began...
This excerpt comes from the first chapter of the book. The inspiration for it came from a number of office jobs I had. I felt incredibly frustrated in these jobs and developed an overwhelming desire to run away rather than get on that commuter train every morning. The book as a whole sprang out of the year I escaped my work in offices, went to Prague and became a teacher. I had an urge to write about it because I knew so many people who felt the same way in their jobs. They too had experienced the descent of the 'Big Frustrated Boredom Fog' I refer to later in the chapter, and had also stared out of many windows, dreaming of escape. Many people have had their own 'Big Green Button' moments and this is a story inspired by how I managed to escape my own.
