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I officially became an English teacher this past week… I would just like to take this moment to apologize to any teacher or professor I might have had in the past. I now see how they can become so annoyed and frustrated with students who disrupt the class and do not pay attention when they are trying to teach something. I was given the task of teaching 16 Spanish teenage girls English. If I told you it was easy I would be lying. The one thing I can tell is always have a backup plan, thank you TEFL Program for telling me this in the beginning. Getting a group of girls or a group of any children for that matter to learn something over the summer is damn near impossible. Although if you put it in terms of something they would enjoy learning or doing you can get them to do anything. I took the things girls love the most at that age and used it in my lesson plans, which means I spent a week talking about boys, Justin Beiber, famous people, fashion and music. They even did a lot of the activities and games the camp and planed for us which really surprised me, because some of them I would not have even done.
It was kind of like taking the kids from the famed MTV show, Laguna Beach, and putting them in the woods with no phones, internet, house staff and parents for a week. Some of them cried the first day and said they hated it, while others gave it a try because it was something new. The end result was a joyful moment when the parents came to see their little princesses ride horses, do a dance they created and have an overall good time away from home in the mountains.
As I greeted the parents I got a wave of satisfaction which came over me as they read the reports and hugged their children and then looked at me and came to speak to me about their children. I now see why some people teach for so long for so little pay. There are little things that were said and done this week and if these kids are anything like me, which I hope they are, some years down the road when they are older something will trigger a memory of camp and a smile will come across their face.
On Monday I have a new group of students. All girls which are younger, but I am hoping it will go as smoothly as this week went, but I know that every group is different. I must say that when the rest of the English teachers were complaining about their children, I was just sitting there asking what the big deal was because mine were rather amazing!!!! I doubt any of them will read this, but if they do I hope they realize I am talking about them and I wish them all the best in their future whatever it is they choose to do……….
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