An ordinary wonderful day in the life of a TEFL teacher

 

 

 

Great things sometimes surprise us…

 

I haven’t had much time to tweet and especially blog – something I love doing, and like doing in a calm way, so that I can really reflect and write a post worthy of being read by so many wonderful people. But end of terms are like this, not only for me but for most people that might take the time to read this. Vacation is around the corner and I hope to make up from it. But today’s post is something I felt I had to write, if just to let it out. Because todays was an ordinary teaching day for me and in so many ways it surprised me. My teaching, my students made a day who started out on the wrong foot end in such a great note. So forgive me for a little hastiness, any typos or other things that might come out wrong. Today I write this post for me. To be thankful for my day, my students and the fantastic career I chose to pursue.

 

 

 

Mondays and Wednesdays are my busiest days. I start teaching early in the morning ( those who know of my sleeping patterns – or lack of sleep is more likely – will probably understand what an effort it is for me to teach bright and early. I am very much a night owl.) then work outside the classroom for the rest of the morning, rush home with son to eat lunch in 15 minutes and rush back to school for a full afternoon of back-to-back teaching. Then a hurried snack/supper and on to a private 1:1 student for another 2 hours. So I usually have a 14-hours shift on these days 🙂

 

 

 

 

... and bring us hope.

As I woke up today, I wasn’t expecting it to be a good day. I was a bit under the weather, worried about covering the content with my morning group (only 4 more classes and 3 chapters to go), thinking about paperwork that had to be dealt with urgently… I go into twitter after  I get everything ready in my classroom and am waiting for the students to arrive, and see Gavin Dudeney’s new post. I am not getting into details, but in short it’s about being bullied online, threatened by a person who you thought was your friend, who you’ve shared personal feelings and stories. And his account of the sickening (and terrifying) experience he’s going through scared me. Scared me because I realized I had a false (and potentially dangerous) sense of security on twitter. It scared me because it made me think back about the people I consider my friends on twitter – could any of them be a bully? It scared me because it alerted (?) me that sometimes not everyone is who they appear to be. It made me feel uneasy – I truly believe (still) I have met some fabulous people on Twitter, some of them I have become closer with, many have become dear friends, people I admire and learn from. Are we really living in a world where people are that mean to each other? Where you have to be wary of everyone, every word, every gesture and measure your own even among who you believe to be friends. A place where you can’t trust anyone? I had these feelings and thoughts all over my mind (and heart) as I got into class…

 

 

 

 

And then the first wonderful ordinary thing happened. Instead of the boring, tiring, hurried class I had thought I’d have (covering the content I am late at), my students gave me a great, fun, relaxing class. They (7 students ranging from 10 to 13 years old) started out by asking if we could have class sitting on the floor today. They had never asked for that, but I thought “Why not” – I like sitting on the floor. We did all I had planned out to do, they worked hard, it went smoothly, we laughed… some students were sprawled on the floor, some leaning on chairs or the wall. Everybody felt comfortable. It was light (despite being a “full-force” grammar-nuggets-with-no-sauce-to-make-it-easier-to-swallow class)… and it lifted my spirits a little.

 

 

 Then in the afternoon…

 

more great surprises, new (and somewhat risky) ideas, change of plans… everything worked perfectly. I had an amazing (an unplanned / unplugged) discussion with my students about formal testing (they’re currently going through the many tests to get into college -the feared “vestibular” ). What a great thing having my students so engaged, making such intelligent collocations on the issue… no regrets about the forgotten plan. Totally student emergent, lots of learning, lots of using the language… I learned a lot from them – and about them. The only sad aspect of this class is that it’ll make it even harder to say goodbye in 2 weeks 🙂 And my final class… well, we’re currently discussing tolerance. And my students’ final task of the day, from the handbook, was to create an acrostic poem about RESPECT. And  in only 10 minutes – they worked in pairs, here’s what they came up with:

 

 

 

“Respectful is everything you have to be to be sociable and accept other people in their own way. There are differences everywhere you go. If you’re not respectful you have to change that and start being tolerant.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

“Rational behavior that you expect from someone who doesn’t have prejudice, or envy you – can be someone tolerant.”

 

 

 

 

 

“Respect each other without only seeing the differences, but also paying attention to the similarities, because everybody lives in a society so it’s common to meet people with a different opinion or lifestyle.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

So here is the main reason for this post, what moved me to write it. it was a big coincidence that the topic we were working in class had to do with what was on my mind during the day. Or was it? What my young students wrote made me hopeful that maybe I am making a difference by bringing these discussion to class, by fostering reflection, making them think about the world we want to live in. Maybe these few students are going to be more tolerant, respect others. They made me feel that there’s more good and good people, good things in this world, in the younger generations. So I thank my students for ending my day in a very positive and cheerful note. For helping send the negative thoughts and feelings away, replacing them with positive ones. How lucky are we to be teachers and see this, eh? Some people could surely learn something from my students today… Here’s to that!