Teach English in Longfengchang Zhen - Bazhong Shi

Teaching environments and styles are never the same from place to place. Therefore, there is no correct way or perfect way when it comes to teaching students. Some classes may be more outgoing whereas some are more shy. Some classes may be larger and some may be little, the list goes on and on. As a result, every teacher would definitely have different teaching experiences. Nevertheless, I myself, also have some special teaching experiences to share. I will start off with some basic information about myself, moving on to how I started teaching, and then finally to some unique experiences. I was born in Taiwan, raised mostly in Canada. I am fluent in both Mandarin and English. I just finished my Bachelor's degree in mathematics along with a chemistry minor. As for now, I am uncertain of what field I want to work in or what I want to do. Teaching English became one of the options for me because my family owns a cramming centre in Taiwan for over twelve years now. Therefore, I grew up spending lots of time in the cramming centre. I went from being a student to a volunteer, and now a teacher. I have experienced the learning program and environment before so I pay a lot of attention to not do the things I didn’t enjoy while learning English when I teach. Honestly to this day I still feel weird and shocked from how I started teaching. I remember the first time I had to actually teach a class was due to an illness of an English teacher. I was a volunteer at that time but had to help teach a lesson because a substitute teacher wasn’t able to be arranged. I was nervous at the beginning but after planning my lesson out and also implementing some of the activities I learned from being a student. Overall, the lesson came out pretty well. The students in my class all looked at me different because they didn’t know that I can be playful and goofy but can also be professional and show some expertise teaching English when required. Now, on to the best part which is sharing a really unique teaching experience that I find to be pretty impressive myself. I have always wanted to volunteer abroad or teach at areas that are not as privileged. I had an opportunity to teach at an elementary school deep in the mountains in Taiwan. Even though I only went there to teach for a day but all the teachers were impressed by my ability to be able to bond with every child in the school. Since the population of the area was little so the school only had about thirty kids in total. The kids ages ranged from preschool all the way to grade six. I got along with all the kids pretty well as they all looked at me like a big brother. One particular teaching experience that astonished all the teachers and the principal of the school was when I was reading a story to the preschool students. There were about five preschool kids in the school and they were doing a storytelling activity that day so I went in and read a story in both English and Mandarin. For some reason, I was able to get full attention from the children. All of the kids were behaving nicely with good eye contact and laughing at all the goofy things I was doing. Kids that were crying before all of a sudden all calmed down. After finishing up my task, I was told by the principal and the teachers that the little kids have never behaved this way. I am glad that I was able to give the kids a good time. Later on, the principal to this day still uses my example when going out to do speeches according to my mother and some of the teachers from my family’s cramming school had told me. Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to visit the school again but it definitely gave me an unforgettable experience. What I learned from this experience was that it is very important to have rapport between the students and the teacher. I still don’t really know what other abilities I had in order to do so since I didn’t have much experience at the time. However, I always maintained a good and kind heart along with a lot of patience when it comes to teaching. Upon having some experience in teaching, and now that I have finally graduated from university and moving on to joining the workforce. I feel like my role of potentially becoming an actual teacher has just began. I look forward to gaining more experience and also improve my teaching skills as I continue on with my teaching career.