"Definitely this is not my job!"

While I was thinking of further entrances for my blog, remember, to help you, I encountered a book I've already recommended to you, and do it right now again: HESS, Natalie (2002) Teaching Large Multilevel Classes. CUP. It's plenty of advice and activities that you can apply to your classes!

Something I read from it made me think this morning... Some of the ideas are hers and others mine or I've read them someplace else...

Feel disappointed as a teacher? Do you think you're useless, that this is definitely not your job and you should return to your dad's butcher's? No way, man! (I respect your dad's job absolutely). All of us had had bad, even very bad beginnings, dire straits. Who hasn't had the experience of the class getting out of hands? Or otherwise they look like dormient cows, absolutely uninterested? "Shrug off your irritants" (cfr. 7 and 8) .Try and try and try again: each try is a step forward! Persevere! And you'll call yourself a winner.

I'm writing by thinking of novice teachers, or prospective ones as well, or even those who have spent the first years of his or her career as a teacher. You'll reach masterhood and expertise and maturity, with the passing time, and facing up your next class with optimism. I'm serious, continue reading. You had a bad lesson? Next can be much the better. A bad lesson is just that, a bad one, but next, I assure you, may be a great one (cfr. pages 7 and 8).

In a serene way think of what didn't work out satisfactorily, and plan something else. If one activity you see it doesn't get along with them, stop right then and do the next. You'll find the activities which work out good, little by little. But remember to plan each class.

That maturity and "dominance" over the students veteran teachers have and that you admire, you're gonna reach it as well. Concede patience to yourself. Nobody's born just knowing his or her profession. Also lean on experienced colleagues if they're accessible (most are!). Learn from them. For discipline problems, be coherent with a truss you set to your students at the beginning of the grade. Lean on their parents and the school staff as well. But even better, gain them little by little, without becoming just their buddy. Talk with them in tutorials: understand them, put yourself in his shoes, in his family's problems, treat them with affection... and at the same time exact and demand high expectations from everyone... and set specific goals that you both are gonna track together.

Last but not least, talk with them about the importance and need of English today, at the beginning of the academic year. Elicit this stuff from them. Make them aware that it's them who have to learn: they are the protagonists of the process of learning.