Unwillingly, I've begun another gap year away from the university. After debating my future with friends and family, I came to no solid conclusions. There was, briefly, an idea to join the police, so that I could have a stable and decent job, but I dismissed it for certain reasons. Beside that I had little idea what to do next. I have a degree in Chinese, but my actual proficiency amounts to nothing. I don't really want to do master's degree in Chinese either.
I am, nonetheless, interested in doing some sort of master's and my degree qualifies me for most humanities. Probably the only solid qualification I can get from humanities is teaching qualification - and I think I'd like to be a teacher, no matter their paycheck. I couldn't get that out of the Chinese degree anyway, but mainstream European language degrees offer such qualifications. The problem is I'd need C1 certification to go straight for the master's degree in another language and I don't have that.
And so my plan for the following couple of months is doing some part-times and preparing for the certification. Now here's the interesting part - I would actually prefer to go for a C2 English straight. Now hear me again, maybe it just is - borrowing Marcellus Wallace's words - pride f-ing with me, but for all the time I've spent with English over the last six years or so I really believe this task is attainable.
If you, reading this text, find it a fool's errand, now is the time for helpful opinions and I will consider them. To outline some of the problems I am aware of I'll just say my English is a complete mess. I would mix British and American spelling and vocabulary, sometimes I feel too confident with expressions I don't understand correctly and so on. This is all because after school I had an utter contempt for regular and well-structured learning; I never paid attention to the subtleties of language and only to the meaning. I consider many of my problems to be formal in nature, I'd need to learn proper ways to speak and write, they're like shortcuts to expressing messages I'm meandering to articulate.
I will probably use Journaly to accompany my learning process. I have at least half a year to take the certification exam. I have motivation to learn. Anyway, if you find this task to be insurmountable (to use a funny word), feel free to share your opinion. After all, there would be no shame in going for the safer C1...
Hi Alex/Aleks, welcome back to Journaly after a bit. From what I can see in your posts, your written English is more than "enough." There will be small "hiccups" in naturality, but any non-native speaker will have those, no matter how much they study or practice. I can definitely relate to the dislike of formal language instruction and reliance on circumlocution (talking around a word).
Depending on where you live, you might be qualified to teach English with the level you're currently at, if you add a teaching certificate to that. If you don't feel prepared for that yet, you could try online language tutoring which sometimes doesn't require any qualifications (besides being a native speaker of a language). Then, once you have experience in that type of instruction, you could try full-time teaching.
Your English is more than enough to teach! I currently teach alongside various English teachers in Japan and their English is good, but nowhere near as good as yours appears to be here. In fact, I'd say your English level is suited to the university level. Your writing reminded me of my professors in university. But regardless, your writing is great and I'm sure you can pass that test and teach if you put your mind to it. From one teacher to another, good luck!