Teaching Eglish Part II

Ok, 2 years has passed since I finished this part time job. I feel like I need to write it in my blog. First of all thanks to my Filipino's friend who introduce me to the job and let me had the experience. I could say that was the coolest part time job I have ever had. Here, I would like to highlight and share some of interesting moments I had.

1. First Day was like Hell

Yes! to be honest for someone with low mentality and limited social skill, it's very scary to speak, teach and guide students. Although I had prepared some materials, in the end experience will speak the most. Another thing is, as non-native speaker it is very challenging to have confidence to teach English while in other room there is native speaker who also do the same job. So, I was just trying my best.

Then, my first day goes not smoothly. It is obvious that I am lack of teaching experiences as well as standard English pronunciation. I saw my students were confused like they don't know what they supposed to do. They confused and I also confused. Such a bad teacher. But thank God we as teacher are not supposed to teach them the language but play games using the language instead. The main goal is to encourage students speak up and use their English.

2. Overcome by Overzealous

Well, I realize overzealous is a good thing especially in encouraging people to do something. I wasn't really confident to teach English and I am lack of skill and experiences. BUT I need the job, because I need the money. So, I push myself, that I forgot my fear and worry. And I try to be overzealous to deliver my message to the students. And guess what, it works! So, then, day by day I can enjoy teaching more and more

3. Everything needs preparation

Without preparations I won't be able to push myself that far, defeat my fear and worry. It helps me a lot. As a teacher, to prepare teaching materials are mandatory. Students can feel whether teachers are well prepare or not. Through preparations I managed to create a fan base among my students and have a great time in the class.

4. Invite students for discussion

Teaching materials are actually have been prepared by the organizer. So, my job is only to execute and make sure students are learning from it. From all teaching materials, there is 1 subject that interestingly encourage the students to participate more. The subject is called "DEBATE". In this subject, students are divided into several groups and have 1 group as judges to decide which group has better arguments. At first I thought this subject won't be interesting to them, considering that Asian students are generally afraid to speak up. But guess what? The students are excited for this class!!! Each of them like competing, rising their hands and speak up. And we had sooo much fun because some of the arguments are totally nonsense but appropriate. When I shared my class experience with other teacher, apparently not any class are excited about this subject. And then I realized, there is another important thing to bring up students to participate on discussion. That is to have a simple but interesting topic to argue. Teacher also play very important role here as moderator.

5. Games always work

Well, almost all teaching materials are playing games. And all of them are worked. No matter what kind of games it is, students they just like to play. Even for the most stupid game like "Robot Race", where someone is being blind folded, cover his/her eyes with fabrics and the rest are helping him/her to walk reaching a certain spot. I was so tired playing this games with the students as the organizer assigned me more than 5 times playing with different class. And every class was playing the game hilariously. Some of the class were too excited that they almost destroy the classroom! And this is girls high school!!! I never know that girls could be this wild! But anyway, I enjoy it.

6. Hobbies help you on teaching

Exactly! I had this experience at closing ceremony of this English program. So, everyone were gathering at school hall and having a closing ceremony. Apparently the schedule were running too fast that organizer asked us to play a yell yell game! In this game, each class has to make a yell yell. No reward will be given, but this game was like challenging each class teacher their ability to lead and produce a creative teamwork result. I was very confused in beginning, not knowing what to do, and the students also have no idea what they need to do. Thank GOD I had experienced singing a chants in a football live gathering. I love Chelsea Football Club and every time I go for live gathering, we always make a chants. So, I just change some words, that it becomes a new chants for our class. There was no scoring for this game, but I bet if there were, the score for our class would be the highest one. We did it very well.

7. Be who you are

Apparently there is nothing more comfortable to do things as who you are. And becoming who I am while teaching gives me more power, flexibility and access to deliver my message to the students.

Yeah, so.. those are some points I want to highlight from my experiences as non-native English speaker teaching English in non-speaking English country. I hope some of them can motivate you to do something or even defeat your fear. Thank you.