I've forgotten...

I really forgot why I wanted to teach. It really gets you when you have been studying so long (5 weeks...) and that you can't really interact with the children. So much for practicality. Can't complain though, Malaysia's worse off.

I went for my volunteered job at Freemans Bay Primary School. I had to translate English reading books to Mandarin at first until the ESOL students came in. It was fun but most of them were Korean... T.T As if I know Korean... The children were so cute though. EEEKKK!!!!

Then after break, they had me helping a Chinese boy with his writing. He could do it fluently in Chinese but not in English. I got him helping me with the writing and also the translating in which is the most important one. He even translated the last sentence with minimal help from me. *clap clap* Brilliant! I guess it does help them when someone speaks their language helps them. The teacher I was working with suspected that he is intellectually very bright but it's the language that creates the barrier. The school does not really have much help for the Chinese students as I could see that the Korean kids actually have more help than the Chinese one as there were Korean translations of everything in the ESOL classroom. They do have Chinese parents coming in to help but the thing is that they need them to be fluent in English as well so the children could benefit.

The third little girl was sooo cute! However, the thing is that she does not talk at all. She worries her last year but this year's teacher has not referred her to my teacher. However, my teacher wanted to test her on her basic knowledge of things like facial features or what they do and a range of other questions as well. The little girl was very slow to respond. She would take a long time before she would answer a question. She does not even look willing to answer at all. However, when I started to ask her in Mandarin, her respond was immediate. She felt more comfortable and she looked into my eyes. I noticed that she would not look at my teacher at all. Well, she did know most of the things and my teacher was pleased with the result. She wants me to work more with both of the children. I do wish I could speak Cantonese and Korean as well. Hahahaha... =)

After 3 hours with the children, I do feel much more secured that this is really the job I want. I really hope that God would show me what I can do more with the children. I've totally forgotten how much I really enjoyed working with children and that was the reason that pushed me towards having teaching as my first (and only) choice as my career.

I'm glad that this experience refreshed me. If not, I think I would really doubt myself why I wanted to be a teacher so much. I had started doubting again as there were so many obstacles in the way.