Teaching Reflections...

For the past 6 weeks I have been teaching at EF (Education First) in Brighton. It's considered a private language institute that teaches study abroad students English. Students come from all over the world for 1-6 weeks in the summer or for the school year. Here are some things I learned/observed there:

• Being a teacher requires a shocking number of paperclips.
• Apparently it is significantly easier for students to call all of their teachers "Teacher!" instead of actually learning their names. It's super attempting to shout back at them "Student!"
• Just because a student says his name is "Jacklyn" does not mean that is what his name is on the attendance sheet... It is likely that he really means "Jack Lin" and his first name isn't really "Jack".
• If your students misbehave and you attempt to discipline them by assigning additional homework, you are really only punishing yourself. 1 essay x 16 students = 16 essays to grade :-(
• Students who speak Spanish are incapable of speaking to each other in English (sorry if this a huge stereotype, but to date I have seen no evidence to the contrary).
• Apparently I look like an international student...3 times in 1 day someone came into my classroom and demanded, "Where is your teacher??" Even though I was wearing a name tag.
• On the whole, other teachers are no fun because they are SO BITTER.