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When I was young, I dreamt about thousands of different jobs, but being an ESOL teacher was never one of them. However, I’ve had the opportunity to work with Chinese students ranging from 5 to 13 years old and it has been the best experience so far. How am I going to communicate with them? Am I ready to be a teacher? How will I transmit what I want to teach? These are some questions that went through my mind before accepting the job, but when I finally decided and started to be an ESOL teacher I knew I was doing what I love the most, transmitting knowledge. I first started with a Chinese company named US Class that utilizes an online platform called ClassIn where students take the online classes from their home, Beijing, and I teach from my own home, California. At the beginning I was only doing DEMO classes (these are free of charge for students that are trying out the platform) but the more DEMOs I gave, the more regular students I booked. A year passed by and I now give 21 regular classes throughout the week. I created a bond with all my students and I love watching them improve every single day. When giving classes, I did run through some trouble on instructions, games, examples, and many other things that drove me to look for a teaching certificate that could help me improve as a teacher. The areas I was lacking the must were on improvisation when having free time, giving instructions, and adapting to the kids needs rather than the lesson’s content. It is important to say that my employer provides the power point’s lessons and my job is to teach it, therefore at the beginning of my experience I thought I had no freedom, or way, to make a lesson plan. After completing this TESOL certification course, I understand and will incorporate a lesson plan for every class and will take the power point’s as a teaching aid. In other words, I will focus more on the main idea of the lesson rather than the teaching aid provided. These lesson plan will help to fill any free time with planned games or drills to complement the taught lesson. I also learned that there is no such thing as free time when having a lesson plan. Before entering a course, students take a placement test to see what level they should be placed in. However, I’ve had encounter classes where a student has a basic understanding on the course and other student, both on the same lesson, with a very high level of understanding. This situation made me uncomfortable at the beginning of my teaching experience because I was not sure how to transmit the lesson’s information for two different level students. After completing the teaching certificate, I now know that simple instructions can be understood by both level of students, but asking different level questions to each can address my problem and make my students feel more confident. For this situation, I would like to incorporate more games like Pictionary, hangman or Monopoly where students can have fun and learn regardless of their fluency. Before I started the ITTT certificate, I did a little of ESA type of course, but I now feel more confident knowing what each stage should incorporate and what they should not incorporate. Following this ESA method will also help my lessons go smoother. I love teaching and providing my students with better teaching techniques was my main motivation to get a teaching certificate. Because I mostly work with young learners, I decided to take the 50-hour course dedicated to them and can’t wait to incorporate my knowledge, ideas, and new resources for my future lessons.
