First class ever... learning to teach
Today I had my first two classes as an English teacher... eventually I'm trying to become what I think I would like to be.
The first class (LEVEL A1) is with a 68-year-old lady. She was very nice and very willing to learn - she basically wants to learn some English in order to be able to understand the basics when she goes abroad.
I must confess it was very tough, but I don't mind because I'm quite patient. The difficulties I remarked are:
she forgets very soon the pronounciation of words and/or sentences
she can't properly hear the right sounds (thus reproduce them)
she tends to translate everything: she wants to know the meaning of every single word, rather than try and be transported by the flow of sounds
We had to repeat many times the sentences we had seen together but the positive thing is that she really wants to learn and she seems a very resolute person.
I will just have to slow down at her pace and make sure that she follows.
In my second class (LEVEL A2) there were three guys, two of them about my age (25, 35) and the other one was a younger boy, still in high school.
The class went quite smoothly, except for the fact that:
one of the students claims to be at level B1. He actually seems to be more advanced than the others. Consequently, I think he found the class quite boring and you could see he felt superior to the class. However, he tried to participate and help the others. What I, on my part, tried to do is to let him start the practice and to ask him if he knew some rules or expressions before enacting them. I have to be careful of not losing him, because he seemed dissatisfied with him being assessed at level A2. He is also quite my age, so I'm afraid he considers me a bit inadequate... he behaves in a slightly supercilious way so I have to be careful if I don't want that his personal disappointmente becomes a matter of dissapointment about the teacher
I have to better manage my time: maybe I should mark better the ending times of each section
Today we went through the verb TO WANT: there were too many activities to do and maybe some of them were a bit complicated. I definitely should go through them before and try to remember the sequence - it is not very nice to see me having a look at my notes.
All in all, a very good first one!