My Back up Plans

YURI JEONG

"It's a strange world of language in which skating on thin ice can

get you into hot water."(Franklin P. Jones) As it is said, everything is

going to be different, whatever we are saying to people. When we

become teachers, we will be facing a lot of unexpected problems

with our students, like interaction with them or their attitudes. To be

a good teacher, it's necessary to have experiences to deal with the

problems. Every student has various personalities to handle. Now I

want to talk about my plans to solve these issues.

First of all, My friends, please only English!

On 13th of January in 2008, I went to Fairleigh Dickens

university language school in Teaneck, New jersey in the U.S.A. In

this school, there were 6 teachers I met and learned from. Among

them, I met this teacher whose name was Robert and the explainer

type of teacher. In his class, all students were supposed to speak

only English, however, when some students ran into their friends

from same country, they just started speaking their native language

without realizing any notice from him. As soon as he caught that

scene, he rushed to them, yelling "Stop it" and "Will you do it again?"

Then he kept bothering them around the other people and surely

the students got hurt and scared. When I was with him, I thought he

tried to show his authority to students too much. So, if we made

some mistakes, such as speaking our language, he turned to be the

teacher who interrupted and made everything by his own way. If I am

a teacher and have to implement this rule that the students must

speak only English, I will try to encourage a friendly and relaxed

learning environment to make students feel comfortable to

communicate in English. While the students are learning new

language, they get nervous and afraid to speak it up. They think they

don't want to make any errors and get shamed. Therefore, I will be

the facilitator to make them speak English naturally. What I am going

to do is to make them small groups and give them easy topics to

discuss in only English. I will say that they don't need to speak

loudly, just tell their opinions about it, and don't worry about making

mistakes. And I will only listen to them in distance.

Second of all, This time is precious!

After I finished the first school, on July 28th in 2008, I

transferred to American language center in Manhattan, New york in

the U.S.A. The school I stayed for 2 years was less strict than

former one. Especially, this teacher whose name was David was the

worst teacher. He just came to the class and did nothing useful

besides making jokes. Accordingly, many students were late and

absent for his class. But he didn't care about this happenings and

only told them to come next time. That's why students didn't think

this class was important and valuable. Thus, it became dull and waste

of time. If I am a teacher in this situation, I will first say, "This time

doesn't come back. If you miss it, you will miss all." I will try to

communicate with my students, asking if they don't like the class or

subjects and why. I will really listen to what they are answering, get

the feedback from them, and change my lesson plan if I need. I think

if my class is interesting, nobody wants to miss it. Therefore, I will

try to make a better lesson plan including enjoyable activities by

giving them more opportunity to develop their English skills.

The last, Once at a time!

On 1st of April in 2008, I had an assignment to give a

presentation in my first school which was Fairleigh Dickens university

language school in Teaneck, New jersey in the U.S.A. The

presentation was about a traditional myth of my country, South

Korea. I needed to prepare for it in 4 weeks. I was in panic at

first, because I had to address it in English. At that time, I was not

confident enough to deliver a speech. Nevertheless, this teacher

whose name was Lisa came up to me and encouraged me to be able

to start it. She made me decide one myth that I knew well and write

an essay in Korean. Afterthat, she checked it out and gave me advice

directly. She didn't want me to finish it fast and simply allowed me to

do one thing at a time, later she read my essay and helped me

to fix it up for myself. I think she was trying to interact with me as

a friend, not just a teacher. Thanks to her, I could finish my

presentation well. Like what she did to me, I want to be this kind of

teacher for students. So if I need to help my students prepare lesson

presentations, I will do samething as she did. I won't rush them to

finish it, instead, I will give them the week plans that show them

things to do like making an outline and collecting information in 1st

week, then writing a rough draft and showing it to me in 2nd week.

With this plans, I can help them more effectively. Also, I will try not

to correct their mistakes first, instead, I will advise them to adjust

them on their own. After they are done writing, I will let them

practice to read it alone, later organize small teams of 6, and read

theirs for their team. Gradually, they will feel more courageous to

give a presentation in front of the whole class.

In conclusion, as a teacher, I will confront many diverse

problems, thus I need to take risk and use my intuition to solve

them. With these experiences about the teachers, I can see what I

am going to do and how I am going to deal with them. By treating

my students with kindness, creating more pleasant and valuable

lessons, and guiding them to improve their English in a right way, I

think I will be a great teacher. The more I manage the issues, the

more I get to be a better teacher.