A good part of this blog has been dedicated to my teaching struggles. Certainly, the challenges have been abundant and I stand behind every word.
But yesterday something amazing happened: I had a great lesson and left feeling HAPPY. Until the now the best I could expect was “not livid”, but this new group of students is something else. What’s the difference? This group actually wants to learn; they’re engaged and interested. They do the activities I ask them to do and elaborate on them independently in class. In this last lesson, for example, we were doing this Halloween activity (I didn’t get to do a Halloween lesson with them before) in which we create a spooky story together: every student adds a line. The story quickly went from scary to silly, and it reminded my kids of this national tale/myth, which they excitedly told me about. It was so awesome to see them so enthused to tell me about this and hear them use their English to do so.
They are also very curious about America, which I appreciate. They had tons of questions for me and asked if we could talk about Boston in the next lesson. Naturally, I agreed and I am so excited to implement this lesson. Honestly, if there is one thing I learned from this experience so far it’s that the most important quality in a student is will. When students want to learn, it is easy to teach to them. And it’s fun, too. I can sincerely say I am looking forward to tomorrow’s lesson and telling my students all about the amazing city of Boston, my home. This group inspires me to keep working hard and improving as a teacher, because my efforts have a positive outcome.
PS- as if I didn’t love them enough, after class I heard my students say that I’m pretty in Russian (the vain diva in me really got kick out that one).
South of Russia, North of Iran 