So I am a teacher. I teach English as a foreign language which has been an adventure. I use to run all over Milan for lessons and now I go to one school and I teach small children and boy do I have stories. Although I could probably write 100 posts just from stories alone, I thought I would just share some of my top moments.
1. Mid lesson, while I was talking, I had a student raise his hand and ask what I do for work. The class was stunned, and I was shocked. I think that was the only moment that class was silent. I had to ask him what I thought I did because teaching definitely wasn’t it. I had another student even tell him, in English, she’s a teacher! I still laugh about it. I gave him a hard time the rest of the year asking him every time I saw him what I do.
2. I had a famous student. A famous singer actually and I didn’t have a clue who she was. She wasn’t a student of mine for very long due to her busy schedule but I really enjoyed our lessons. She already had a great grasp of English but she was looking to keep it up and learn how to have deeper and meaningful conversations. After our lessons I started noticing her way more and now I see her on TV pretty often. If you are wondering who it was it was Malika Ayane. If you have no idea who that is look it up on your favorite music streaming platform, you won’t be disappointed.
3. I had the sweetest adult classes. Teaching adults for me is a challenge because one, I never feel old enough to be teaching adults and two, they are quite blunt when it comes to what they think they should be learning. However, last year I had two night courses that were actually really great and helped me get over my fear of teaching adults. They were interested in learning English and always made me feel included in their conversations, which often with adults is difficult. Also adults mean we can plan parties and I think we had few pizza parties because we could. I honestly miss those students a lot and their interest in my lessons.
4. Watching my little guys improve. As most of you know I made the change to preschool (which is quite different from the adults I mentioned above) and well it’s been a challenge. However, one of the biggest rewards I have gotten out of it is seeing their English improves. Most of the time it is small, like calling me to look at something, or its big like answering my questions in English. Teaching preschool may be hard but these little moments make up for it.
5. Learning Italian from my students. Nothing bonds a teacher and student faster than teaching each other. I am not fluent in Italian but I like to think I can speak it well enough at this point, especially with my students. However, there are times when I don’t understand and I love asking my students to explain which has turned into some pretty entertaining lessons. My favorite is when I pronounce a word wrong and they all take a moment to correct me. To be honest I have learned more Italian being in the classroom than I ever did actually studying the language (sorry to my teachers!).
Those are my top teaching moments so far. As always I could write more but then we would be here for 5 days so here’s the summary. Thanks again for stopping by and reading!
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