Life As “TEACHER”

Honestly speaking, I was very nervous when I was informed that I had to do a practicum teaching for a week– one of the many requirements for my TESOL short course. “It’s not like teaching your brother and sister, but it’s a professional teaching. You have to dress, speak, behave and teach professionally and ethically,” said one of my teachers who is a TESOL program manager. My head was like a volcano which would erupt very soon when the practicum day was approaching. Many questions came up into my heated head: what should I do if they [students] don’t understand what I teach? How old are my students? How scary is my practicum supervisor? What will I look when I wear tie [I have never worn tie before]? What if my students don’t listen to me? What sorts of languages and gestures should I use in class? And there are many more I don’t list here.

Every evening after finishing class at my university, some of my classmates and I normally go to the library to do our assignments, read books, and surf the internet. Besides, we chit-chat outside the library, and we often go to eat some snacks before going home respectively. I was expecting that one-week-practicum would be like an interminable preaching. Paradoxically, I was wrong.

Adorn with many colorful pieces of drawing and a variety of slogans tending to educate specifically to young adult children, my practicum room can possibly accommodate not more than 30 students. Out of my 5 days practicum season, I was obliged to spend 3 days doing the observation – meaning I had to sit at the back of class to observe: what teacher in charge taught, what good and bad points she had, how my students were, what strategy I would use to deal with them, especially to get me accustomed to real and academic class. Three days ended, and, eventually, my turn came.

The first teaching day came. I felt very nervous, and my heart was beating very fast because I had to stand in front of a group of people not telling them but teaching them to understand lessons. While I was teaching, I felt agitated and flustered because I was perplexed about what I per see was teaching them. At that time I took many glances very often at my lesson plan I laid on the table with my laptop which I prepared for the listening section. This first day I didn’t walk around in the class to check my students’ work because I was too timid to do that. After finishing my first day practicum, I was inundated with comments and suggestions from my supervisor who is both kind and CUTE. She has long black hair, and her face is bedecked with two shining big eyes, a quite good-looking nose, nice eyebrow, and pinky cheeks. She has fair complexion and two smooth hands, but she is a bit thin. This was probably the main contributing factor which made me bashful. LOL.

Actually, I was supposed to end my practicum season with my second day teaching, but it didn’t go as I expected. I was informed few days earlier [even before my first teaching day] that my practicum supervisor weren’t able to observe my teaching because she had to take part in her sister’s wedding party. I was also notified with unexpected news that my new practicum supervisor in the second day was a school vice principal. She was the one I met for a while during the first day of my practicum season, and she asked us [my practicum mates and I] very kindly about our past teaching experiences and many other stuffs. I didn’t know why I normally felt that she was a tigress to me or it’s probably because her face looks scared enough. LOL. However, at the first teaching day night, I got a call from my cute supervisor, and she said, “the vice principal MIGHT NOT come to observe your teaching because she had a meeting, and she was not sure whether or not she had time to observe you, but you had to be well-prepared.” According to her notification, there was a high percentage that the school principal wouldn’t come to be my observer. Yeah, it was like what I was praying for. The vice principal didn’t come to observe me, but it’s like a notification to me that I had to do another teaching practicum day on Monday to let my cute supervisor observe. During my second day teaching, there was not supervisor, and I also didn’t want to teach them much. I spent half an hour teaching what I had to, and another half for an open discussion forum for my students to be more familiar to each other. I was flooded with many questions from geographical map-related questions to other general knowledge such Halloween party, why sea is salty, and many more. It was both a hectic and joyful teaching day, and my students and I seemed to understand each other increasingly better.

The final day of my practicum teaching came, and everything was prepared. This last day, I was very energetic and eager to teach, and I didn’t know why I became so engrossed with it or it’s possibly because I was accustomed to the class environment and situation. Personally, I felt that I did a very good job because I took my supervisor’s constructive feedback earlier into great actions resulting in a comment my supervisor said to me after I finished my teaching. “PERFECT!” said my supervisor. I was speechless, but a huge smile came onto my face, and I was talking to myself in my mind, “you are doing an excellent job, dude.” Nothing did I response to her besides muttering “thank you, thank you, thank you so much” and “thank you for your very constructive, helpful comments and effort to facilitate so far.” You will understand my feeling when you experience your hardworking and commitment do pay off eventually.

I have been talking so much here about what I actually did, and how cute my supervisor is, but I didn’t depict how my students are really like. My students range from 8 to 15 years of age, but two of them are around my age. However, the two are still childish mentally. Some of them are [both naughty and noisy generally] but not in my teaching time according to what I noticed, and few are just reticent. Vicissitudes will inevitably arise when dealing with such students. During my 3 days of observation, I saw my supervisor having some difficulties dealing with them. Still, when my turn came, they [students] seemed to be so organized, and very avid to be engaged in all learning activities I assigned. My supervisor and I were astonished to see this as well.

Frankly speaking, the term “teacher” is more than the word implies, and why? It’s because it’s more than just teaching them lessons in the books, but everything which is pertinent to their living environment. Sometimes, you have to be like a friend, father, brother, scientist, dancer, singer, actors, and so on. Dealing with young adult children, I think first one has to understand some of their personal background, interest, behavior, way of living and socializing with others. Some young adult children are naughty outside – physically, but inside –mentally and spiritually – they are very vulnerable. If teacher knows well about their nature, dealing with them is not a big problem.

I, honestly speaking, felt very nostalgic, and tear was almost coming out as I grabbed my motorbike likely to drive home, and my students approached me and said, “Will you come to teach us again? I really want to study with you.” “No, I won’t,” I replied. They continued, “will you come to see us here again?” “If time permits,” I said. Looking through their eyes while talking, it even made me want to cry, but I didn’t. That was the most movement I can’t delete from my memory, and it’s also a movement which really pushed me to be a teacher – a professional I really appreciate the most. If there is no teacher, human resources in specific country will totally vanish leading to a collapse of everything in that country. To construe, teachers should be highly appreciated and respected, and their remuneration has to be  as high enough as the term “teacher” implies.