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.