Feeling inspired
August 30th, 2010 § 2 Comments
Just met my last group of students. Only four volunteered to do the Monday workshop and they are all boys. A second group of students were settling in to watch Looking for Ali Brandi and weren’t about to volunteer themselves for work instead. The boys were so sweet. They are all self conscious about their English skills.One of them was in English as a Second Language class for two years. They were very eager for help to write and edit their stories and we ended up having a discussion about how to improve their English skills.
My advice was that they read as much as possible. The school librarian is very passionate about reading and encouraging kids to read. She buys books that the kids are interested in so I was encouraging them to make contact with her. Reading is what saved me and gave me a way out of my circumstance. I told them about my brother who doesn’t have good literacy skills and as a tradie it limits his opportunities for work as he can’t present quotes, invoices or handle accounts for his business and so only works with industrial contractors.
I also told them that they need to use their teacher’s comments/feedback as a resource. They need to look at what mistakes they make in their assignments and start a revision sheet identifying their weakness so they can look out for those mistakes in future. When I began university I received a lot comments about my grammar as I was of the generation where we didn’t get taught grammar formally at school. I didn’t know how to use apostrophe’s correctly and this brought my mark down (even now I have to evaluate how I’m using them). By the end of my degree I didn’t have any comments on my assignments as I learnt to correct my own mistakes.
I had already decided to apply for further study and be a teacher, but this group of students have really inspired me to hold onto this dream. I could relate where they were coming from as they were all children of parents from a Non-English speaking background. Just like me they don’t have the help at home to assist with their schooling and provide them with guidance. While I decided to be a teacher because of future work opportunities for myself, it made me realise that this vocation needs to be about more than a paycheck. I want to inspire and help students and because of my background and circumstance I have the skills and experience to do that.
Lucky students. It sounds like you’re exactly the right person to be teaching them.
Thanks Robyn. I’m looking forward to these last few weeks with the students.