Dec. 22, 2016
10:00 pm
Beijing, China
So here’s the thing about being a teacher, you’re never done with school. I mean, obviously, you’re in school every day teaching the kids. But I mean that a teacher never stops having to take courses and certifications and so on. I know, I’ve only been a teacher for two months and I have no actual background in teaching. Other than having my TEFL certification, I have no real qualifications to be a teacher. That said, I have heard this statement from people who are qualified teachers back home in the US, as well. A teacher is always learning something.
There are some explicit ways that a teacher learns. Usually, they have to continue to gain more qualifications if they want to move forward in their career. For instance, I took the Teacher’s Knowledge Test: Young Learners (TKT) today. It’s a certification that basically proves that I have the knowledge and am equipped to teach learners between the ages of 6 and 13. The test is mostly common sense if you have any teaching background (including my limited knowledge of the past two months). There are a few tricky ones, of course, and I did get hung up on a few of the questions. The trouble is that there’s no way to study for this test; it’s mostly based on real-life experience. In addition to this TKT, I’m hoping to take the other 3 modules while I’m working in China. These tests are different from those that teachers in the U.S. take, but there you’re constantly getting recertified or studying an area of focus or something to continue to learn more.
Another explicit way of learning is through other teachers. My co-workers are great to learn from. They’re always willing to lend a hand and show me what to do. They give me advice and strategies. If they watch my class or I share an activity in a training or meeting they are quick to give me feedback on how I can improve or what I can do differently. They’ll also just tell me if my ideas are bad, because it’s better to hear it from one of them now than to have it fail with the kids.
There are also subtle ways that a teacher learns. The most cliche is that a teacher learns from her students. This is true, in my limited experience. Although my students haven’t taught me much vocabulary (although my SSBlues did teach me how to ask if it was time to go home), they’ve taught me a lot of skills. I’m getting better at reading kids, at knowing what gets them excited, and how to balance teaching and fun. I’m enjoying getting to know more about them and using that in my classes.
Finally, there’s learning through the course material. Most people would like to think that teachers are all experts in their fields, people who know the answer to every single question a student could ask. Yeah, right. Especially for a new teacher. Even teachers with degrees in education don’t have all of the answers. It’s impossible to know everything about the subject you’re teaching at the age of 22 (or any age, my dad says). As a result, it’s really cool when you learn something from the course material. For example, one of the Trail Blazer classes I watched before I was actually teaching talked about the difference between “will” and “going to,” In the students’ textbook, they made the distinction that English speakers use “will” to signify a set plan, ex. “We will have dinner at seven.” Whereas “going to” signifies a plan that you’re pretty sure of, but it’s not 100% going to happen, ex. “We are going to have dinner at seven.” To native speakers, we really don’t think about it. I say, “I’m going to go see a movie,” even if I’ve already got the ticket in my pocket. It’s not that big of a deal to us. But grammatically speaking, there is a difference, just not one that we follow consistently when speaking colloquially. I like learning these little tidbits as I plan a lesson. Some of them are a little arbitrary (see above), but it’s still cool to see.
Abba Bless,
Kristen
By the way, the featured picture is of the elevator I rode on after I finished my test. It was truly a box of plywood held together with metal locks like you see on a bathroom stall door. I really hope it was just hiding the metal underneath or something more substantial. But I survived, so apparently this actually works to hold people.
