I have begun teaching and stopped several times and I'm not scared, but I am nervous and I keep scratching my arm - sign of nerves coming out as eczema.
When I first started teaching the First Certificate Class I had a student who was very noisy and dominant. A dominant student always wants to be a rival to the teacher. The first thing she did that irritated me was her noisy breakfast. She would bring in a can of coke and a pastry from Gregg's for her breakfast and make a great parade of tearing the bag and opening the can, and I asked her to not make such a loud noise with it all. She was not supposed to eat of drink in class at all and eventually I said that she would have to eat her breakfast before she came into the class because it was so disturbing. She acted as though I had infringed her human rights. What a sulk she went into! I ignored it. Then came the day that I criticized her speaking. I told her about mistakes in word order and in omitting articles, and using the wrong prepositions. She just didn't believe me. She was so used to people telling her that she spoke great English, because she was fluent, but there were a lot of mistakes in there and she did not accept that. (She was very proud of the fact that she was engaged to an English man and very excited about her wedding). After that speaking assessment she was even more insulted with me and she decided to talk all the way through all my lessons - I taught that class for three hours a day. She had a pal who was also a big sulker and together they formed a partnership that would not answer any of my questions and behaved as though I wasn't there.
I really couldn't decide what to do. She had paid for the lessons - they all had, and they were preparing for an exam and it was my job to make sure they were ready. For two months I just carried on teaching the ones who were good, marking their homework and so on, and trying to ignore the hostile ones. I used to dread going into work. Then one day I walked in after the break and found that there was a conflict going on. A young Spanish man was telling the noisy girl that she was ruining the class, and after that she left the class and didn't come back until the exam. Phew!
(When she came back for the exam she arrived with the famous fiance. He looked about 15 and was about half her size.)
Anyway I decided I had made the wrong decision with that student, and next time I would nip any such behaviour in the bud as soon as it started. The next class I was assigned was an advanced class and I was rather excited about all the interesting things we could do because of their higher level of English and the fact that they were not an exam class. But on the second or third day a student came in who ignored me completely and talked to the rest of the class as though I wasn't there. She talked throughout the lesson in spite of me asking her direct questions and asking her to listen. So after the class I tackled her and said: why do you come to the lessons if you are just going to talk? She said: "I don't need lessons. I have a job in Boot's! I am only here for the Visa." She was very proud that she had a job in Boot's. (All the students needed to attend classes for 15 hours a week because they were on student Visas.) So I thought about this and how the agony would go on and on if I didn't stop her behaviour. So I went and told the Director of Studies about her. Ida could be lovely but she could put people right down. Ida came and fetched the young woman out of my class the next day. She tore her off a strip and the woman came back in floods of tears. She had clearly been humiliated and she blamed me for this. So Ida put her in another class.
Was the result good? No. The whole class hated me. They sat and stared at me for an hour and half every day and refused to answer any questions. I couldn't make them write, either. After the break they all left except Magda. I ended up just teaching Magda. My life was still horrible, apart from the time the Hungarian came on holiday. He took lessons for 2 weeks as part of his holiday. He loved my lessons and was really enthusiastic. Apart from Magda, that was the only nice part, for three months.
So there you are. What was the better decision? I don't know.
Also, people think that teaching adults is easy. The fact is, they don't always behave like adults.
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