Teaching English 4: Anxiety

For every foreigner who has come to Taiwan to teach, I'm sure there's at least one horror story.

My first day teaching here was a complete disaster.  I was teaching kindergarten, and I had never taught kindergarten before.  I had only been in Taiwan a week, and I wasn't sure what kind of classroom discipline was "OK."  I did EVERYTHING wrong, and that first day was the Longest.  Eight.  Hours.  Of.  My.  Life.

Before I came to Taiwan, I had only taught adults.  I was working at a non-profit organization in Seattle, helping immigrants pass the citizenship exam.  I had a few ideas about teaching, but I had no degree in Education, and no real knowledge of the field.

Then came the decision to move to Taiwan.  Teaching ESL in Asia - sounds fun, right?  I suppose at first I didn't think much about the actual work I'd be doing.  I was more thinking of exotic locales and beautiful women, maybe also the chance to learn some Chinese.

But as the day of my departure approached, I began to realize what kind of trouble I was in.  Of course the people on the phone said, "Haven't taught kids before?  No problem!" but as I boarded the plane, I started to think that it wasn't going to be as easy as they made it sound.

And I was right.  I had no idea of how to manage a classroom, and to make things worse, no knowledge of how to teach little kids English.  The "Chinese Teacher" they had given me couldn't even understand my English, and I went through the day trapped in a haze of crying and screaming.  Most of this crying and screaming was from the children.  But not all.

To this day, every time I see that scene in "Kindergarten Cop," where Arnold Schwarzenegger has his own first, disastrous day teaching kindergarten, I am reminded of my own first day teaching.  I had never felt like such a complete failure, before or since, and I suppose it is this feeling of failure that pushed me to be better, and to have a good grasp over what I was trying to do as a teacher.  In a way, I think it was necessary for that day to happen.  Otherwise I wouldn't have learned how to improve.

Thankfully that first day was only one day, and the next day was better.  I got a co-teacher who could understand me, I learned how to talk to little kids, and I learned how to teach ESL.  I even went back to the States and got that teaching degree.

If you are reading this, and thinking about your own first venture into teaching ESL in Asia, I encourage you to give it a try.  Yeah, your first day might be just as bad as mine, but with patience you will improve, and with time you will succeed.  It's never easy to acquire a new skill, and many ESL classrooms can be a sink-or-swim proposition, but for those with a will, there is a way.