X Things I Learned From Teaching Young Children — 1. Age

Unexpected results and potentials.

I didn’t know what it would be like to be employed as a teacher for teaching young children after school. I thought it could be a very short-term job like three months, but it didn’t end that fast.

Many people during their college years have this experience of teaching or tutoring young children. Others choose this job because they have experience of having their children going through this phase or they were once teachers of public schools. I wasn’t any of those.

I thought it would be a great idea to have an experience of teaching children whose first language isn’t English because I could make some use of my abilities of writing, reading, and speaking English.

I didn’t major in literature, English, TESL (Teaching English as Second Language), or linguistics, so I wasn’t sure if I would be hired. Another reason was to have some income, of course, as you would expect from any jobs. I didn’t have any other major sources of income at that moment.

Although the pay wasn’t super high, I’ve heard teaching children provides you a great experience, some people say they love the job, so I thought it would be something meaningful if I get the job, and if I could remain in the job for long enough to feel that way.

I got an interview and an exam.

And passed both. Being hired by one of the largest companies specializing in this area!

They were able to assign me as I requested.

The routine was, spending some time going over the day’s teaching materials after receiving the day’s schedule. Even if I had only one elementary school student, at least a 10 to 15-minute preparation was absolutely necessary before the class.

It includes grabbing the right learning materials from the bookshelf, looking through questions of the exercise/quizzes and answers, and filling out a report form describing things learned in the class and for the next class, and so on. During this preparation time, I had to recall who she and he was if it was not my first time teaching the student.

If I have a few students or two classes/slots in a row, things got a little crazy. Everything had to be done quickly from the preparation, wrapping up one class for each student, and for the next students, then completing the forms for each student after class.

Because I was teaching a few young students at the same time usually, and they are not always at the same age or level, I had to have a general plan about how to go about the teaching every time.

1. Age

Age just gives you a good estimation of their learning materials. But their learning ability can never be underestimated.

A few of my students did so well on their quizzes, behaved so well during the lessons, and were just between grades 1 and 3. Another time when I had a chance to teach the same level to another girl, I was stumbled. She did okay on her quizzes. That was okay because students were there to learn. What interested me was she gave me a wrong answer almost 3 times with the same answer. Even right after I said the correct answer, and let her tried again. All her responses were so quick with a confident manner. It was like, “Oh, I know this answer!” It led me to wonder several things: 1. Was I not clear? 2. Was she interested in giving me a wrong answer? 3. Was she trying to tickle my laughter? 4. What she practiced, memorized, or believed in could be too strong to change? I should be patient, then.

I guess it was one of those teaching experiences. You get to remember a student who wasn’t doing great on exams. But, it lets you realize that teaching young kids can be fun sometimes because you know the teaching material so well. At the same time, it also lets you think about how to teach, how to lead them to understand things better.

Thanks for reading!

Next will be 2. Character.