Teach English in JiAngsushengjiAngyin Jingji KAifAqu - Wuxi Shi

From a very early age I knew I wanted to be a teacher when I grew up. I was inspired by one of my own teachers. I wanted to be like her and make a difference in the lives of my students. After working toward this goal the majority of my life, it finally happened. I received my first teaching position, for first grade, in a small town in North Carolina, on the eastern coast of the United States. As much as I learned in college, even the stuff I encountered during student teaching, nothing could have prepared me for my first year of teaching. I arrived at the school exactly two days before the academic year was to begin. Over the course of the year I learned about the many problems my students faced outside of the school building. Many had parents on drugs, in jail, murdered, and so many other terrible things. I began to realize exactly why my first grade teacher, my inspiration, spent so much time simply loving her students. My second year of teaching began with a move back to my home state of Georgia. There I encountered even more challenges, for me and my kids. It was at this school that I began to fall in love with teaching English as a second language. I had thirteen English language learning students in my classroom, with four different native languages. This was the year that I truly began to see the beauty in learning a new language, and how incredibly these students grow over the course of the year. I had a wide range of abilities within the normal academics of the classroom, but also within my English learners. Some students spoke fluent Vietnamese and fluent English, others moved over to America approximately one month before starting school and had never even spoken the word ‘hello’. This was a very challenging year for me, but also a very rewarding one. This was the year that I really learned to use my students’ strengths to help the progression of the entire class. I found out that those students who were fluent in their native language and English, were very willing to help tutor those who were not. With this, they young students who were just beginning to learn English would open up more. They felt less intimidated and were more willing to experiment with this new language. When an achievement was made, the pair would often come running up to show how much growth had been made. Once the learning student gained confidence, they began taking speaking risks in class, then reading risks, then writing risks. I saw so much growth that year. As the years progressed, I seemed to always have the English learning class. Here in America they often group them together in one homeroom to make the English Language Learning teacher’s schedule easier to manage. Over the years I fell more in love with teaching English as a second language, I loved the different dynamics they brought to the class and their drive for learning. Recently this love for teaching English as a second language has merged with another love of mine. Travel. The decision to acquire my TEFL certificate was a combination of the two. With this I hope to expose my own children to a world that they may not have otherwise been able to see. I am ready to take my calling to teach, further than I ever have before.