Back to Class!

Learning from books, learning from others, learning from experience, learning from mistakes.  I love learning in every sense of the word.  Part of the reason why I want to become an english teacher is because I want the reward of watching my students progress throughout the year.  I want to see them grow and learn and come away wanting more.

This is why I woke up eager on my first day of class and for the first time I walked in thinking what it would be like once the roles are reversed and I am standing in front of the room waiting for my students.  And not gonna lie it kinda freaked me out. Needless to say I was really excited to see what the first day brought me.  

I was apparently the only person in my class who lugged two heavy books on English grammar and structure halfway across the world with me.  I whipped them out before realizing that everyone else had only a pen on their desks and immediately knew how Hermione must have felt during Defense Against the Dark Arts class.  "Miss Granger, five more points from Gryffindor for being an insufferable know-it-all." 

We learned a lot of important things on Monday, like how to engage students at the beginning of class, the concepts of content, context and modeling but one of the best lessons of the day was how to re-write our resumes.  Resume writing in the US is all about academic accomplishments and making yourself sound like a God walking amongst mere mortals.  The great the thing about Southeast Asian employers is they don't care about things like scholarships, honors, or 4.whatever GPA's.  Delete, delete, delete. They care about things like dedication to helping others, personal achievements, and fun things you do well. No joke.  Things like open water diver certification, soccer coach and surfer. Check, check and check.  I can actually put awesome things on my resume? How cool is that?  (The fun things you do well part is about seeing if you are able to teach an additional subject/sport/instrument/etc. in english to help the kids practice their english in a different way.)