We have been through one class so far. However, I feel that it has opened my eyes to many concepts about language teaching and forced me to start thinking more critically in general.

I have managed to put together a group consisting of 6 high school students from my neighborhood. It will be a conversation class for one hour on every Sunday and I will be teaching them for free.

I am as excited as I am anxious for this coming Sunday…  I met up with the group for about 20 minutes and exchanged contact information at a coffee shop last Sunday. Based on the small talk I had with them, they all appear to be fairly at the same level of English proficiency, except one, who appears to have a little better listening and speaking skills and another, who appears behind compared with the rest and strikes me as the most shy among them…

The first question that I have been pondering is: “how can I get them all to actively participate?” As the first step to accomplish this goal, I will be asking them to assign themselves English names (after all, this is an English class), and then to write their picked English names down on blank pieces of paper and to make name tents out of them as a warm-up activity. I will try to get them to converse by asking them to tell me why they have picked that particular English name.  For this very first time, I will be asking them one by one the same question.

I am next planning to ask them to introduce themselves and share anything they wish as another warm-up activity. This time, I will be picking a student to go first and subsequently that student will pick another to ask the question “could you tell us about yourself?” and so on and so forth until all will have the opportunity to introduce themselves.

Another thing that worries me is that I want to make classes fun and ensure that they stay interested (I am not yet sure if they have volunteered to join this group because they wish to improve their conversational English or because their parents are making them to join). I hope that they will reach out to me with difficulties they are experiencing with their English classes at school (their homework, exam preparation, etc.). As I get to know them, I need to piece together what interests this age group. I suppose what interests high school age boys in Europe/the USA would differ to some extent from same age boys in Korea. I am relying a little on my husband’s input. However, he is way older than them…

Overall, I know that I am at the beginning of my journey towards becoming the best English language teacher I can be. I need to draw on my past experience teaching at Purdue University, SMU STG class I am currently taking, my husband’s and classmates’ input/feedback. I am looking forward to seeing myself grow. I also know that I am already making great connections and will have great resources to fall back on through this class.