About Ms. Km, my enabler

I have met many teachers in my life. I remember the most impressive teacher in

my youth. She is one of the teachers having had influenced on learning or

studying somethings. I want to tell the story of the teacher.

The teacher is Ms. Kim. She is my English teacher when I was 3th grade in middle

school. Most of teachers usually explained and overloaded the concepts and lots of lecture-based informations in those days. And the  students had to memorized  them for the tests.

In the other hand, she had a special educational philosophy.

She gave us presentation assignment about topic we were going to learn that day

in advance. She divided some groups made of 5 or 6. She assigned each group a

different task. For example, one group had to study on the Olympics and another

group had to study on the United States  and so on. Of course she permitted to

use Korean if it is needed. Her teaching way is flexible. She gave us about an half hour how to prepare for a

presentation and when and where we get together. Each of us searched an

encyclopedia or reference books she had recommended. And then We gathered at

friend’s house on weekend and discussed on a topic and made a presentation

material like a big paper. She taught students in traditional classrooms without

computers. She Knew her students could use an encyclopedia or reference books.

She emphasized on teamwork and let us share the synergy from it. Also the most

important thing is active participation by students in her class. We had to spend

lots of time to prepare for the class in advance. For example, she let us read reference book she had recommended and search encyclopedia on most subjects.

Through the preparations and presentation, we were able to concentrate on the

class. It was hard to take her lesson but I think it ‘s more effect to learn English.

After the lesson she sometimes let us to role play with the topic we learned. We

had to use the expressions we had learned in front of other students in group

work. She led us not to memorize the test book dialogs to change the situations

properly and use the expressions. That was so shy and embarrassed to most

students.

She commented what’s good point and modified what’s wrong. However, she

didn’t forget to encourage and to praise us. She tried to find out the point to

praise even though it was so little.

She made some rules and observed them strictly. One of them was to do our

homework and submit by deadline. She have students who didn’t do their

homeworks stay late after school and made them do their homeworks and submit

them. I stayed late to do my homework once. While I did it in the classroom she

was reading a book in her desk. When I handed it in to her, she smiled at me and

encouraged me.

She hardly yelled at us or scolded us. She usually smiled at students and

encouraged them up. She tried to release the tension when we gave a presentation

or answer her questions.

Every year the Teather’s comes back, there is one teacher smiling at me in my

mind. Maybe she isn’t young enough. However her smiling at students is always

same to me. She is Ms. Kim, my enabler. She taught her students in traditional

classrooms in the way of effective teaching. I want to be a teacher to try

to pursue effective ways for my students with the affection.