Teach English in Huangli Zhen - Changzhou Shi

Although in my early years as a child, I have never desired to be a teacher, but as I grew, I realized that teaching was something I was not only interested in, but also enjoyed. I had my first teaching experience after I had completed high school. My first teaching experience started as a babysitter for my neighbour’s children. Although I was in my teenage years and still in High school, I discovered that I could capture the interest of these loving but restless children. They would sit quietly for minutes and sometimes for hours, listening to my invented yet interesting stories. At the end of which, they would, out of their curiosity, ask questions I was willing to give answers. With this discovery, coupled with my innate love for children, I volunteered to babysit and teach the children in my church. My experiences during those few years of working in the children department of my church, with the positive response from the children, influenced my subsequent decisions to continue teaching. My first formal teaching experience was after I had finished high school. I got a job to teach nursery student in a private-owned primary school. On my first day of teaching, being a trial class, I was incredibly nervous. My feeling of nervousness was due to a number of factors; first, the fear of standing before teachers to deliver my first lesson, Second, the thought of teaching a bunch of restless nursery kids; lastly fear of not meeting standard of the school. Nonetheless, my first day in the classroom went better than I expected. My responsibilities were to teach them how to spell simple words and read simple sentences, solve simple mathematical problems like addition and subtraction, verbal, quantitative reasoning, and writing. Though the lesson contents were not difficult, writing a lesson plan for each week was something that I had never done before. At first, it was a daunting task but with time, the process got a little bit easier, and I started getting more creative with the lessons. And though my time working in the school was short, I was able to impart knowledge and a larger number of my students could spell words and read simple sentences. These gave me a great deal of fulfilment on leaving the job. After my tertiary education, I was fortunate to be deployed for my National Youth Service Corp (NYSC) to teach in a state in the Eastern part of my country. NYSC is a scheme set up by the Government of my country, to involve the graduates for nation building and development. So graduates are deployed to states other than their state of residence or origin to serve in different field of careers for about a year after which they are issued a certificate. Of course, on my first day of teaching I was incredibly nervous. This is basically because of the thought of teaching older students – an average age of 15 years. More so, writing detailed lesson plans and notes for the three classes I taught, each week was rather a herculean task. Nonetheless, I was able to devise methods that made my teaching effective. For instance, I appointed representative for each class and assigned them responsibilities regarding the course. They are to collect the assignments and bring them for evaluating. Their assistance helped to me focus on the most important things. After my service year, I was offered a job to teach physics to a class of high school students. And my experience with teaching these students were no different from the experiences garnered in my previous teaching jobs. These experiences have taught me a lot about what it means to be a teacher and helped me discover a lot about, myself, as a future educator. For example, my volunteer work at my church taught me patience, understanding, compassion and sensitivity – virtues I now understand their relevance in teaching. Further, my first formal job helped me understand that there are different students with different needs. Therefore, understanding these peculiar needs, allowed me help each student and come to their level. I learnt that no two students are the same and every student deserves to be treated uniquely. I also learnt that I do not have a good sense of time when I am teaching; so I now know, through my teaching experiences, how to make a schedule of what will be done at what time. More so, writing lesson plans is no longer a herculean task. Finally, my job as a high school physics teacher, has taught me that I am not just a teacher by what I teach and say in class, but by how disciplined I live. Students tend to respect a disciplined teacher. Needless to say, all these experience and lessons has reinforced my desire to continue in teaching and has created a hunger to continue to learn as well - which is one reason for taking up the ITTT TEFL course. I hope that I can continue to learn more, become better and more importantly use these experiences and skills to motivate students through teaching.