Teach English in BAyanwulA Sumu - Xilinguole Meng — Xilin Gol

This year, was my first year as an English teacher after a long years of experience in the IT field which is very far away from teaching. And guess what, I was hired in Istanbul, as an English teacher for kindergarten students who doesn’t speak English at all, and their native language is Turkish. I was very worried from the idea of teaching children of this age, although the whole teaching career was something new to me, but to teach this age caused me extra stress. When I started with them, I thought it was only about making them busy with something, teaching them the alphabets and some simple words and that’s it. Then I was faced with the real life situation which was totally different than what I thought. First challenge I faced, is how I am going to communicate with 6 years old students who doesn’t speak English, and I don’t speak their native language as well. This caused me quite a hard time trying to figure out an easy way of communication between us. Second challenge was that it is my first year as an English teacher and I don’t have any experience before in teaching such young age. I discovered that students in this age has a very low attention span, and they really get bored easily and quickly. Third challenge was how to keep a class of 17 students quiet and disciplined to be able to teach them what I want without problems. This was my biggest problem back then, as I approached the problem incorrectly because I didn’t possess any experience in such issue. The fourth challenge was how to be able to finish the required curriculum in time, and to make sure that all my students were able to understand it. As a new teacher, I did many mistakes while tackling the above challenges. This caused me to believe that my first year as a teacher will not be as easy as I was thinking. Only then, and because my field of study at the university was not related to teaching, I decided that I must learn how to teach, as I was becoming more passionate about this job, and I wanted to learn as much new information and techniques as I can to help me with my new career. My wife, who is already a certified TEFL teacher with long years of experience, advised me to apply for a TEFL certificate. Thinking that this certificate will make the coming years easier for me, I decided to go for it. It was really a good decision. All of the challenges I faced during my first year which is actually still didn’t end yet, I was able to find solutions for them. I knew that I approached some challenges incorrectly like for example keeping discipline, I couldn’t manage not to shout, and I wasn’t able to hide how anxious I was in front of them. I knew that this was a wrong approach after taking this course, and I am sure my coming year will be much better than this one after learning the correct techniques. I also knew lots of information and helpful resources that will help me a lot as a new teacher. I was really clueless about what activities I will be doing with them, and which activities are suitable for their age. This course’s resources really helped a lot. I also learnt some techniques to communicate with single language kids, as I’m not a Turkish speaker, and they are not an English speakers, I knew that the best way to communicate is through visual communication (hand signals, pictures, objects… etc) and it should be in a fun and relaxed way so they are not bored. I also knew how to plan my lessons effectively (I wasn’t doing that actually!) so that I can finalize my required books in time, and in an effective way, making sure that all the kids do understand everything. And I was also able to learn some techniques to deal with problematic, and special students. Taking the TEFL course was one of the best decisions I made. I am sure it will help me a lot next year in my teaching career.