Always a Language Student

Enjoying our time back in America. We’re in Wisconsin now, and the weather is decidedly a lot cooler than Indiana. We’re adapting. . . slowly but surely to the weather. Again, we thought we wouldn’t be able to cut it- we thought we’d be frozen stiff by now. But thus far it hasn’t been TOO bad. Of course, our bundle of clothes that we pulled out of the basement helps too. We’re up to two layers. Probably by November we’ll have three. And December. . . well who knows!

It’s sort of interesting to think that I’ll be an English teacher next year. Never in my life did I ever think I’d be an English teacher. But I guess that’s what happens when you spend so much time overseas and English is in such high demand. It makes a lot of sense really. It’s a no-nonsense “this completely makes sense” kind of deal. I teach English, get paid a little for it, and we get to live exactly in the heart of our people group. Seems like a no brainer to me. And if teaching English for eight or so hours a week lets us continue our project, then it’s a good trade-off.

To that end, I’ve been cracking away at this online TEFL course (teaching English as a foreign language). The course is sixty hours and I’m about 75% through. It’s more interesting than I thought. I always enjoy learning new things, so a refresher on English grammar, etc. is sort of fun. It’s been what, fifteen years since I studied this? And now that I’ve been a language student myself for the past two years I KNOW the pain of not understanding a language. It’s HARD work to learn a second language. Definitely no joke. So as a teacher I will most definitely be able to relate with the students. I’m still in their shoes, literally. As long as we’re overseas we’ll always be language students. That’s just part of the job description. I know many of the things I’ve struggled through myself as a student will appear in my own classroom again. I want to be a better teacher than the ones who taught me! Yep, they made a lot of mistakes. And I didn’t know how to learn either, so maybe we’re both to blame. It hasn’t all been a smooth ride. Definitely less than organized at times. But somehow I’ve come this far. Somehow I’ve learned this crazy language, and started on number two! Does it ever end!! =)