The Challenging First Classes

“You never forget your first class.” This is what my former teacher said when I told her about my first class.

I told her I felt I had failed, that I left the class totally drained and disappointed.  I had spent hours planning that class, making sure nothing would go wrong, paying attention on every single detail… And then, as I was there giving the class, I started noticing how many things I had forgotten, how many things I should have done different.

Honestly, after that first class, the only thing I wanted to do was to cry and never, ever get back there. I started thinking that maybe I was forcing something that was not  in me, that was not mean to be. Maybe everybody was wrong and I would never be a good teacher.

I’m not used to lead, to guide, to teach. I know I’m a good student, I learn fast, I’m good at it. I know I’m the best student they have there and I don’t have to make any effort to do this; I’m good at it because I love the English language and I love learning… However, teaching  is a completely different matter.

Last year, when they invited me to teach there, I found the idea very interesting, because I would have the opportunity to work with something that I really loved. The idea of giving English classes never crossed my mind (at the time I had other plans in mind), but I was willing to try. In theory everything was perfect… Until my first class.

Despite that first bad experience, I got  back there and gave my second class… And it was good! It was not perfect, but it was much, much better than the first one. I wasn’t nervous, the timing for the activities was right, I had learned how to deal with the CD player, we had fun playing the games from the book, I had the responses I was expecting… Everybody had fun!

Almost a month have passed since my first class and things have been much easier for me. Now I know better how to plan the classes, what are the things that will probably work and the ones that won’t. 

My teacher has many years of experience and she said it gets easier each time…  I want to believe her.

The First Update

My intention when I started writing this blog was to update it everyday, or at least once a week. It’s been almost a month since I started giving classes and until today, I couldn’t find time to do it.

Now that it’s a holiday here and I’m going to have the whole week “free”(at least from the school), I’ll try to organize everything so when the classes start again, it’ll be easier to keep my decision and write at least once or twice a week. I don’t need, but I want to do it, because I think that in the future it will be interesting to read about my first experiences being an English teacher, the things I did wrong, the things I did right, my mistakes and my successes.

I will not edit my posts so they will probably have lots of grammar mistakes,  wrong words in the wrong places, wrong verbs and wrong prepositions, but I’m trying to convince myself that it’s OK.  It’s hard to accept it because I always want things to be perfect and  always try to make things perfect, but trying to do it requires more time than I have, and this is not even the point here.

That’s it… The first update in months. Imperfect but sincere…

My Handsome Dog

Here are some photos of my handsome dog, Max.  

 Ready to play!

 Meditating about life, maybe?

A Good Espresso

This is how a good espresso should always be served :  A little glass of sparkling water to clear the palate so you can appreciate the taste of the coffee, and  a small cookie to make you happy!

The Ladybug

Ladybugs are lovely… I found this one in my backyard this afternoon.

The Beginning

This is not my first blog, but it is the first one about my daily life and myself. I always loved writing and keeping journals, but I haven’t written anything for a long time, so I thought it would be a good idea if I had a place where I could write again. I’m very excited about it, and I hope that with time I’ll feel more comfortable writing and sharing my experiences, thoughts and hopes with you in this beautiful place.

Welcome to my world!