As you must certainly (or not) know by now, I had my very first teaching job this summer at BEET Language School in Bournemouth, one of the best in England. I got hired right after my CELTA and felt so anxious before my induction I could barely sleep.
Will I be able to plan interesting lessons?Will they behave correctly? What if I don’t understand my students? What if they decide I am too young to teach so they decide not to listen?
Will they figure it out that I am a non native and decide to hate me?
Since I am still alive to write down this words, you may suppose that everything went well. I decided, at first, to keep quiet my citizenship, mostly because my name and surname sound actually British and then, because I just decided it didn’t matter, I spilled the bean. It really didn’t matter at all. I tried my best to plan interesting lessons, tried to involve students and I enjoyed myself.
I loved every seconds of it and I literally cried on my last Friday (especially because I had to go back home, in France so I had to turn down an extra week teaching there..).
At the end of my lessons, on that last Friday, I asked them what part of our lesson did they prefer. One of them, an Arabic student, was normally chatty but this time, he just looked at me and said: “You gave me hope.”
“Hope?” (that’s my line. Sorry, I couldn’t think of a better one. Remember, last Friday.)
“You proved us that it was possible to master two languages.”
I remained speechless.
Isn’t that the precise reason we become teachers? To give hope to our students, motivation, a goal to achieve? (Don’t get me wrong, I am not saying that I should apply for the Global Teacher Prize award right about now, I am not reinventing the wheel.) What I am thinking right now is that, as teachers, it’s a part of our job to set up examples.
I hope that I will become one for my students.
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