What do you do when you find yourself at the front of a classroom in a foreign country, with 50 students staring at you?
You smile, try to remember everything you’ve ever heard about teaching. Pray they know at least a little English.
My team and I spent 4 days this week in schools teaching English classes. I’ll be honest – that first day was a little intimidating. Teaching Spanish was easier because I could explain what I was talking about. In English classes in Thailand, I definitely don’t have the option of explaining concepts in the students’ own language. That first day wasn’t bad, but I didn’t have a lot of confidence.
Here’s the thing about being thrown into new experiences and feeling like you’re in over your head: it happens a lot in life, and sometimes I don’t accept the invitation to push through those times and learn from them. It happens a lot on the World Race, too, but I think there’s a greater expectancy of pushing into the challenge.
Fast forward to the last day of English Camp. This was our smallest group, only 50 in total instead of 200, which meant only 10 or 12 in each class rotation. This was easier in some ways, but also more challenging because all of the activities go by a lot faster with such a small group. We were also short a person, which meant I didn’t have a World Race teammate teaching with me. I did have K, one of the YWAM volunteers, helping me out. Although K is just learning English himself, he’s familiar with our teaching activities and can usually explain to the kids what I’m talking about even if he doesn’t understand my exact words.
I almost had a moment of panic when I realized that because we were teaching for a full day, my first class would be a full hour, which was more time than the activities we’d used on previous days would fill. And the activities would go twice as fast with so few kids. And I was the only English speaker in the classroom. And being the only English speaker meant that I was responsible for initiating and leading all of the activities. And our Thai translator was in an entirely different room. And there were 5 Thai teachers in the back of the room watching everything I did.
This would be the time to push into the challenge, and pray for a boldness I wasn’t feeling.
Confidence came a lot quicker than I thought it would once I accepted that I had to step up and not be timid. I was feeling pretty good, until I realized that my first two activities had only taken 15 minutes and there was no way the rest of my class plan would fill the hour. My teammate and I had planned a backup game where we had written animal names on sticky notes. Each note would be stuck to a student’s forehead, and they would have to ask yes or no questions of their teammates to figure out what animal they were. The problem was that we hadn’t been using it in our bigger classes earlier in the week, and hadn’t really had our translator explain it to K so that he could tell the kids what to do.
I didn’t have a better option, so I started explaining the game in English and prayed my fellow teacher was a mind reader so that he would know where I was going with this.
I pulled out the board we’d made up of animal names and started going over them. I didn’t know if K knew all of them, so I acted out each animal with sounds and motions just to be safe. The kids definitely paid more attention once their foreign teacher started mooing like a cow and imitating a monkey. I knew I had them when I pulled out one of the sticky notes and stuck it on my own forehead. We’d already made up a board with questions like “Am I big? Do I have 4 legs? Am I furry?” and those are thankfully pretty easy to explain through gestures. K caught onto our new strategy and took over the explanations in Thai, much to the relief of the children I’m sure.
I walked away from that class with an entirely new attitude about teaching English. I’d not only survived it despite having to adapt as circumstances demanded, I’d actually had a lot of fun! K and I taught 3 more classes that day, all without issues. I figured out which silly questions to ask that would make the kids laugh. One of our phrases was “How old are you?” so I even admitted that I was about 14 years older than most of them (yikes!). I liked ending each class by having the kids repeat the phrases we’d learned. I’d sit on the ground and K would tell them to come and sit around me. What I loved about these kids is that I never had to ask them twice to come huddle around me. As soon as the invitation was extended I’d find myself instantly surrounded by eager faces. Class usually ended with hugs and the students shouting “Teacher, I love you!” over their shoulders and they headed off to their new class.
I may have been the one teaching, but there were several things I learned in school this week:
Show no fear.
If you go into the classroom with a smile on your face and speak to the students with confidence, they will respond to you.
Trust the people helping you.
My fellow teacher and I don’t speak the same language, but we managed to jointly teach 4 classes that day. Trusting that he would do his part was vital to make our lessons work.
Adaptability is not an option, it’s a necessity.
Plans don’t always work out. Be ready for changes, accept surprises, and prepare for everything you didn’t think was going to happen.
Give the kids a reason to love you.
On my first day of English camp, I treated it like a job I had to do. On my last day of English camp, I treated it like a ministry I was excited to be a part of.
Have fun with new challenges.
It’s really freeing to try out new things and figure out what works. It doesn’t have to be a frustrating process. Try out different strategies, adapt, and enjoy growing into a new role!
Do I want to be a teacher? No, I don’t think God’s calling me there permanently. I can say that the next time I’m asked to teach English, I’ll go into it with a lot more enthusiasm! And even if it’s not my ideal ministry day, I want to be excited about serving in every capacity.
