The part where I "teach"

Today I had my first official lesson teaching “Little Stars”- that’s Guru Centre's term for the tiniest, newest students. These kids are only 3-5 years old. Not only was this my first class teaching, it was their first class learning at Guru too. It’s an understatement to say that we all performed like beginners.

I have a vague memory from my own first day of preschool. In this distant flash, I cried inconsolably and refused to leave my parents’ arms or play with the other children. Well, it turns out that 20 years and 8,000 miles later, kids still pretty much react the same way I did. Although there were (thankfully) fewer tears, my tots were still very attached to their parents and for the most part, too shy to speak. I know that they will adjust quickly with some time and repetition, but being a fledgling myself, I felt as stressed out and uncomfortable as they did.

It became clear right away that simply following my lesson plan was not going to work. Any educator can attest that teachers have to be adaptable in the classroom, and today was the kind of day that was more improvisation than anything else. I had two back-to-back lessons of the same age group and material, and the second lesson went much better than the first. The content I taught today was short and simple – hello, I’m (name), goodbye, red, yellow, blue, and green. Easy stuff to learn, but difficult for me to assess with some of the students not talking at all. I do think that my kids left the classroom today with a verbal understanding of the material, but if they stare at me blankly tomorrow I won’t know if it’s because they’re still shy or they never really learned the words at all. Adding to the communication barrier is the fact that I don’t speak any Vietnamese  - this is where the teaching assistants come in, and they are a complete godsend. Even though the class is supposed to only use English and most of the instructions I give to students are easy to gesture and understand, it’s really important that someone can help them when I can’t, especially with such young children. In addition to managing the kids’ needs, they also provide feedback and assistance to the teacher. If I didn’t have the TA’s to help out today, my lesson would have been nothing but a circus act.

Despite the frustration, anxiety and disorganization of my first lessons, I would like to think they weren't a complete failure. Even if the students learned nothing, today cemented my belief that Asian kids are absolutely the cutest in the entire world. I adore my students. I'm willing to give it another shot tomorrow, because I want to them to like me. And because it's my job.