Meet our lecturers: Interview with Andrea Kačová
Today we bring you a very interesting and engaging interview with our colleague and excellent lecturer of English language courses, Andrea Kačová. Start with her beginnings, when she started working at Harmony twenty years ago. You will learn about its added values and priorities, which it places great emphasis on during its lessons.
1. When did you start working at Harmony and why did you choose this, at the time, language school?
I started working at Harmony 20 years ago. At that time, I was looking for a job in addition to maternity leave, and I accidentally discovered an advertisement in the then Trnava newspaper that Harmony was looking for an English teacher.
So I sent them my CV with an application, then I was invited for an interview and there I found out that the owner and my potential future boss was Janka Chynoradská, my former classmate from elementary school. However, I must point out that the interview was conducted in a professional spirit and I felt tremendous respect for the position offered.
2. What courses and for what age category you started.
I started with courses - group, individual and corporate, age category of participants from preschool children to adults. At that time, working hours started around 1:00 p.m. and we ended with the last lesson at half past nine in the evening. Classes on Saturday mornings were also common.
3. Do you remember your "first" pupils in Harmony? Do you know about some of them, what they are doing today, in which direction they decided to go?
Of course, yes. Especially at the beginning of my career, when several colleagues Paťa Petrová, Evka Paršová, Aďa Rebrová, Renátka Olexová, Fer Riga or Marek Neštický and I worked as full-time teachers and tribal employees for many years, so it was famous to start teaching children from kindergarten, for example, and after years we "escorted" them out of Harmony as fluent-speaking young people.
4. What was Harmony like twenty years ago?
Innovative, inquisitive, eager for knowledge, kind and containing the X factor 😊 .
5. How do you see Harmony Academy with your eyes today? Has anything changed in it compared to your beginnings?
Many things have changed, just as life passes, Harmony has gone through one big stage of life - from birth to adulthood. Harmony has developed into one of the most top educational institutions not only in Slovakia, but also abroad. In addition to learning foreign languages, it deals with a huge spectrum and diversification of educational activities for teachers, managers, but also emphasizes the development of the personality of ordinary people. Despite this, she still remains a unique spirit underlined with a focus on the individual.
6. Introduce us to your current courses you are leading.
I am currently engaged in only two courses - corporate and individual, in which I have two children - siblings. Since I have other work activities, my bond at Harmony is preserved, we will definitely agree on a broader cooperation in the future and I am very grateful for that.
7. Are the "pupils" in your current courses different from your "first" students?
Perhaps I will answer this question the other way around. Not the pupils, but I, as a teacher, am certainly different - more experienced, more confident. Everything I've done in 30 years of operation as a Trainer She taught English - through self-education, experience or working at Harmony and the many so-called trainings that Harmony provides to her tutors, it is for me absolutely identical to what I have subconsciously always felt since the beginning of my career. That's why I naturally connected to Harmony's preaching and philosophy – and that is a real, authentic, unfeigned interest in the student, the client, the person and their needs.
8. Do you remember the best or most beautiful course experience during your career at Harmony?
I would probably have to fish in my memory, because there are so many of them and I would not be able to choose. But in general, and this is what every teacher who teaches mainly with the heart will tell me that the most important thing is two things - how a student feels with me in class, whether he is one hundred percent connected to me and I to him, then it is the greatest satisfaction that brings the feeling that it is only you and your students at that moment and the outside world does not exist then. And that passion that you feel if you are endowed with that feeling is then rewarded by an inspired and happy student.
9. What do you think Harmony Academy will be like in 5 years' time?
Harmony, which has always been personified and will be personified by Janka Chynoradská, is focused on the need for one person - not a group, not an organization . And this essence makes it special, and it always will be - it will never disappear.
10. Will you and your pupils😊 participate in our Christmas competition?
Certainly yes.
Thank you to Andrejka for a sincere conversation.
