The End of Confusion

    confusion – uncertainty about what is happening or needed

It’s October already, and I can’t believe that it has already been almost seven months.

In 2014 when I first came to Japan, I realized how difficult it is to teach a language, but I think last term was even more difficult.

As an English conversation teacher I believe my job is to help students get better at speaking. Sometimes I teach grammar or pronunciation or vocabulary, depending on what my students need or want to improve on, but usually I try to help my students to get better at speaking, which is something they can rarely do in their daily lives.

But this year was different. Since March I have received suggestions about what I should do in my lessons, like giving tests or scoring the students’ listening, reading, speaking, and writing skills.

They were only suggestions but they confused me because I started to think that perhaps I should teach them more grammar and give them more tests and use textbooks.

That’s what I did in some of my lessons and I feel like I failed my students.

I taught them like a school teacher who tells her students to say a sentence over and over again until they can say it perfectly but also get bored and lose interest.

    over and over – again and again

I should have focused more on teaching my students to be confident in using English and enjoy using it so that they can appreciate it and enjoy learning it on their own.

I still have a lot to learn as a teacher, but I’m not confused about what I should do in my lessons anymore and I will keep improving myself so I can give lessons that are both fun and helpful to my students.