Yes, but what if it all works out?
— Omdenken.
But I have to…
First and foremost, we want our students to learn. But how that is done is often not determined by a teacher’s or student’s needs. There are governmental regulations, curriculum demands, schoolboard requirements, coursebooks, standardized tests, colleagues that have decided that their way of teaching is THE way of teaching and parents who need their children to score particularly well on your subject and know exactly how that should be done.
These conditions are all real. We as teachers have to manage these demands and requirements every lesson. It is easy to forget that learning is about student growth rather than following a curriculum. Yes, the curriculum is designed to instigate that growth, but let’s not forget there are many ways to get there. There is the coursebook’s way, the standardized test’s way, the way your colleague has been doing it for years and there is your way. A way that suits you and your students.
But often we forget there is a ‘your way’. We whip out the coursebook and assign a task which teaches the students to fill in the right form of this or that grammar item. We let them read a text and ask them to answer some questions on it, checking their understanding of what they have read. We check the work, assign some homework and move on to the next lot of students to repeat this once more.
Pretty boring if you ask me. But like many other teachers, I felt there was little room for ‘my way’. There was a planning to adhere to. Parallel classes to keep up with. A standardized test to prepare them for and a school board to convince that I am a ‘proper’ teacher.
My epiphany (and hopefully yours as well)
With a boring lesson, I did convince my superior that I was a ‘proper’ teacher. I was lucky enough that he tasted some of my unhappiness about the lesson that I had just let him observe. When I grieved my concerns about trying to not fall out of line, he reminded me of the simple fact that there are many ways to achieving the same result. A fact that I had totally and completely forgotten.
I was so concerned with all of the requirements that I had forgotten to have fun with it. And it showed. I felt uninspired and my students dreaded going to my classes. Something needed to change.
I am going to teach English my way. With fun, exciting assignments that make students want to come to my classes and make me excited to teach them. Yes, there are standardized tests, a curriculum and a final exam to work towards. But there are also many ways to get there. Let’s have some fun while we’re at it, shall we?
Have fun teaching! ^_^
Love,
Astrid
Exciting English 