Stages In My Teaching Life

Tinkerbell and her Talent

I love children's movies and I always take my nieces to the cinema to watch them. These movies conjure in myself memories of my childhood and fill my soul with pleasant images and sensory perceptions. Also, they contain a moral that makes me think about life. One of the latest movies I have watched and relished was Tinkerbell. At the beginning of the movie, Tinkerbell is born and is taken to Pixie Hollow, where she is given a talent at random. Her talent is to be one of the tinkers, the fairies who make and fix things. In brief, Tinkerbell is not satisfied with her talent and tries to learn other skills but in vain. In the end, she learns to find how valuable her talent is.

The Movie and My Teaching Career

The moral of the movie helped me to understand some aspects of my teaching career, such as:

• I was born with a talent, to teach, which I have been developing and improving;
• Unlike Tinkerbell, I have always felt it is absolutely rewarding;
• I would not be able to do a different thing;
• I have got a mission in life.

Stages in My Teaching Career

While developing my "gift" I have passed through different stages. I started teaching when I was at high school and my "students" were my classmates. In those days, I used to help my peers at home with homework and I offered them after class help for free. Even, I did not mind helping my classmates prepare their exams when they failed the end-of-term tests in all the subjects. I remember receiving my classmates at home and explaining different topics to them and making them do extra exercises. I corrected their exercises and did my best to explain items in the easiest way possible for them to grasp them. I was successful and I managed to make myself understood. My greatest reward was being chosen as the best classmate at the end of high school with the 98% of my classmates' votes. It was really moving.

The second teaching step was when I graduated as a teacher of English as a second language in my early twenties. At the beginning of my teaching career, even though I have always found it delightful, I could not relax in class. I was self-conscious and I tried to control every aspect of the class.

As time has passed and after attending courses and conferences to improve my teaching career, I have become self-confident. And that self-confidence has given me the chance of feeling at ease in group classes. This relaxing attitude helps me to be a better teacher and to meet my students' needs.

Of course, as in all walks of life, teaching requires constant improvement and updating so as to face the challenges of the current times and prepare our students to make practical use of what they learn.