How do you measure your own success as a teacher? There are some times where I doubt how well I am doing in my position, whether my lessons are effective for all my students. While some groups catch on right away, it can be challenging to communicate with others. But one piece of advice I received is that in the context of different classes, my definition of a “win” might need to change. Depending on how much English experience a group has, perhaps just getting practice saying English words and phrases might be considered a win, whereas for other groups that are a little further along in their English comprehension, reading and sentence-building might be part of my definition of success. At the same time, if a group is able to execute on all parts of the lesson with ease, then perhaps my lesson isn’t rigorous enough.
In every class I teach, we consistently have fun. I know this is not universally true across all the teachers’ classes. Although I was initially unsure how I would take to it, I genuinely love teaching. Even though there are a lot of faces I see each week, I can tell that the students are becoming more confident in their English speaking abilities. It’s almost unbelievable we’re at the halfway through the program, and I’m looking forward to the enjoyable lessons to come!