Sunday, October 02, 2005

Teaching English

Wow. I just came from my last class with my elementary students. It is amazing how well they are doing! I am so proud of them. Something about teaching ESL makes all of us feel almost maternal towards our students. There's something even more special about teaching a group from beginner. They walked in 5 months ago not being able to express simple concepts in English. This afternoon I had them doing a conversation exercise and they were saying things like, "Murat's not here. He's gone to work." Dude!!!! So cool! Next week they have their final exam and in 2 weeks they will be pre-intermediate. Fortunately, I will continue teaching them through the next level. I know the day will come when I will no longer be teaching them. In fact after having them for 3 levels, the policy is that someone else has to teach them. It reminds me a lot of working in the greenhouse. You go out and collect all these cuttings of plants and they're there with no roots. You give them the stuff they need and then one day you look and they have roots! It's not like you gave them roots, they grew them on their own, but you helped them do it, and it's really cool to see them go out into the garden and grow there......

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