Difficulties of the Beginning Teacher

By Jung Yu Kyoung ("Audrey")


        "What's the matter?  Have some more!  Teaching is a hard job. You will be tired soon," said my friend, Mira.
        "I know..., but I can't eat more. I'm too nervous."
        It was my first day as an English teacher. I had met the students who were going to be in my class a week before. However I was really frightened!
        Over 15 pairs of eyes looked at me! It was a really quiet class! I had to say anything to break the calmness. Oh, dear..., I couldn't think of anything I couldn't remember what I'd prepared for the first class.
        Day by day, I've come to know how to teach. At first, I asked myself what qualities I should have. In my memory, I really hated teachers who were lazy. Sometimes they came into class with no preparation. Also, some used the same textbook every semester. It made me bored, and I thought they were not good enough teachers. So I decided I'd prepare well for every class. Next, I thought, I should remember students' names as quickly as possible. I remember when I was a student, that I liked a teacher who knew my name and who I was. Lastly, I'd never be irritated at the class because of my personal reasons, because when a teacher punishes students, he or she should be reasonable about it.
        The time has gone fast. The following are some episodes of mine during my three months at Dong Yang Academy.
        First, one day, I made a mistake of pronunciation. It was the word "lose." I pronounced it [lo:z], but one of my students pointed it out and said, "It's [lu:z]. I quickly thought, "Oops! I was wrong." However, I answered like this, "Even native speakers have a lot of different pronunciations, accents and intonations. Accordingly, I'm not a native speaker, so I can make a mistake. Do you understand?" But I knew, it was absolutely my fault, and my answer lacked logic. Because my pronunciation was exactly wrong, I reflected upon it.
        The second episode was similar to the first one.  One day when we were checking test answers from a middle school English exam, I checked quickly. "Oops! Oh my." I began to be confused by the answer to question number 13. The second answer seemed to be right. Too many eyes looked at me again. My face turned red. I had to find one answer. I pointed to one girl. She had a paper which had already been checked at her school. I asked her what the answer was as if I knew it. She said the right one. So I said, "That's right." I'm still not sure if the students noticed my embarrassment or not. I think it was really a hard time for me. I wondered if they believed their English teacher was not clever enough to teach them, and for that reason they didn't trust me. If so, our relationship was going to be much harder, and they would  ignore my lesson. Anyway I passed through the experience well, and I learned a valuable lesson. I must prepare well before every class.
        The third episode was just about my feelings toward students. I'm teaching from children to high school students. There are lots of students, a total of over 60, in my classes. Some students have a good appearance, are really polite to adults, and come to class on time. For these reasons, I like some specific students. However, I think I shouldn't distinguish among students who I like or dislike. So these days I try to like all students, even those with attitudes.
        Just three months have passed since I started teaching English. I've learned a lot and experienced a lot. I'm not sure if I'll go on teaching or not. But I know that during the time I teach, I will learn much more than now, because teaching is a really interesting and important job.

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