My First Lesson

For those who've read my last couple of posts, I am a TEFL (Teaching English as a Foreign Language) teacher at a language school in Jakarta, Indonesia. Teaching was something that I never really thought of as a career option. Truth be told, I did not think I could teach a soul anything because I was a very average student. My averageness (if that's word) followed me to university where I got my average BA in an average subject and continued living a very average existence until I had an epiphany. I wanted more out of my life. I wanted to stop being average and try something new and completely out of my comfort zone. So I figured teaching abroad would be the way forward as the benefits are two-fold. First, I get to experience a culture that is so vastly different to my own and secondly, I can put on my CV that I did something other than admin jobs and had graduated from university so maybe I can get a decent enough job when I get back to the UK (I hope so at least).

But I digress, what I really want to rant talk about was my first lesson.This happened over two weeks ago on Saturday the 10th of February at 10 in the morning with elementary learners between the ages of 16-36. I had never taught before so I was nervous REALLY NERVOUS! I was nervous despite the fact that I had observed lessons all week and had gotten some great advice and tips for my lesson from my colleagues, I was still nervous! I was given less than a week to come up with a lesson plan which is plenty of time, right?! WRONG as I am a master procrastinator and only planned half of a 3 hour lesson. Not good.

Friday came and went, it was now Saturday morning. I woke up in my usual pool of sweat (Jakarta is hella hot!), turned on the room's AC, got out of bed and scuttled off to the shower. I then got dressed and waited for my ride to school. It was during my ride over that I figured if it does not go to plan, it isn't the end of the world. So I did just that, I went with the flow!

I got to my classroom early to set up my 'getting to know you' and warmer activities. Then, they came in! Six students (four guys and two girls) sat down looking at me possibly sensing fear and trepidation on my part behind my smile and laugh. I introduced myself a little too quickly to my students, so quick that their faces said 'Apa?' (Bahasa for what). I took a step back and had a breather. I then wrote my name on the board and elicited the pronunciation. After that, I introduced the game 'Lie Detector', I had written statements about myself on the board some were true, some were false and the students had to figure which ones were what. The statements were:

1. I am from England.
2. I drive a car.
3. I am married with two kids.
4. I support Manchester United.
5. My favourite colour is yellow. 

To my shock and horror, they thought I could drive, LOL! We also played a ball toss memory game, where they had to say their name and something they like and toss the ball to the next person who said their name and something they like and repeat what the previous person had said and continues to the last student who has to remember everything what everyone had said. This enabled me to assess their speaking and listening. It was awesome to see them smiling and laughing and equally awesome that there are a few Manchester United fans in the class too, hehe! I warmed up the class with an game that was based on the grammar point they worked on with their previous teacher, which went down quite well.

As the class wore on, I grew in confidence despite my half-assed lesson plan. I knew who were the weak and strong students and most importantly got to know my students and what made them tick. After finishing my lesson, I sent the students to the computer lab to do some on-line work for the course for the remainder of the class.This allowed me time to breath and say to myself:

 'I could get the hang of this, if I write a decent lesson plan!' 

I have now taught six classes and each one is different to the other. I've written decent lesson plans for some and winged it other times, oh well! But getting my first lesson out of the way is like going to the dentist get a tooth pulled. Once it's done, your fine! Of course, there is room for improvement because I am new to this teaching thing so I can only give myself time.

What was teaching your first lesson like?