Thoughts on Teaching

Through my experiences so far as a teaching assistant, I've learned to improve my flexibility and spontaneity in the workplace. I'll admit, I'm the type of person who likes things planned out in my head beforehand, and I like to have quite a bit of control with my work. But I realized this week when yet again a colleague at my school asked me to do a lesson only an hour or two beforehand, that I've improved on my flexibility and spontaneity. At first, these kind of requests caught me off-guard and kind of stressed me out. But now that I've become more comfortable with teaching, I usually accept these requests without a second thought. For instance, last week a colleague asked me to come into her 7th year class and just let the students ask me questions. Questions about my life in the U.S., about myself, and so on. I've done this before for other teachers, and I know that often the students don't necessarily have questions ready, so there tends to be moments of silence or the students become restless and talkative because nothing is keeping their attention. So I've learned to ask them questions. I ask them about their lives, what they know about the U.S., what they would like to know about the U.S. I've also started to allow students to play games like "Simon Says" or Hangman. The word game usually gets students' attention. And although these games might not be the most challenging or thought-provoking, the students are still hearing and using English. And they are hearing and using it with a native speaker, which is something many of my colleagues find very important. I've learned to just relax and be myself. When I'm not worrying so much about my lessons being well-structured or organized, I think they run more naturally.

Because my schedule is not the same every week, I've also learned to be flexible. Of course doing lessons spontaneously like I explained above is partly being flexible. I've learned to just accept the fact that some days I go to my school to teach without knowing when I'll come home. I've learned to just take my work day by day. Some weeks I teach more lessons than other weeks. Some weeks I'm needed a lot and other weeks I'm not needed very much. I've just learned to accept it. I've learned to let go of my frustrations when a class gets canceled or something goes wrong, resulting in me not being able to do a lesson I had spent hours on preparing. And like probably most teachers, I realize more and more that one's lessons will not always go as planned, and sometimes they may go very badly. It's just how teaching is, and you have to make the best of it and be willing to change your original plans. When we teach, we also learn.

Aside from teaching, this past weekend I went to Vienna (Wien) with another teaching assistant that I know. We were only there a little over 24 hours because we only had Saturday and Sunday to travel and it takes about 6 hours to get to Vienna. But we were blessed with beautiful weather! It was quite a bit warmer than usual, in the high 30's and mid 40's, and the sun came out quite a bit! Germany can be quite overcast and gray this time of year, so my body was ready for some Vitamin D! We saw some great sights like Belvedere Palace and Schönbrunn Palace (pictured below),the St. Stephen's Cathedral, and Vienna's beautiful town hall. Oh and eating apple strudel and coffee at Vienna's Sacher Café. And I enjoyed the long train ride, as much as a person can enjoy a 6-hour ride. We had some good conversations and I had two books to read from time to time.

Welp, let's see if I can keep up with my writing!