{"id":3810,"date":"2012-12-04T21:49:21","date_gmt":"2012-12-04T21:49:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thesojournseries.com\/bavaria\/?p=3810"},"modified":"2016-04-29T20:29:48","modified_gmt":"2016-04-29T20:29:48","slug":"an-educational-exchange","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thesojournseries.com\/bavaria\/an-educational-exchange\/","title":{"rendered":"An Educational Exchange"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Eager to take on new opportunities during our time abroad, I said yes to a little job teaching English to a group of children, some 9 months ago now.\u00a0\u00a0 I had never actually envisaged that I would end up teaching anyone anything really, especially as being a native English speaker is perhaps my only qualification in this field.\u00a0 But, it’s going well, and I have become quite fond of my little group of 8 year olds.\u00a0\u00a0 They are polite, usually enthusiastic, and have helped with my German more than I am ever going to let on (to them anyway!).\u00a0 They feign interest when I educate them in the strange rules of English language (although not as strange as some of the rules of their own language in my opinion), and have shown interest when I incorporate English traditions such as playing conkers for example into lessons (and I try not to laugh when I see their eyes meet across the table in a “what is she going on about now” kind of way)…\u00a0\u00a0 I have also found that it helps (especially with boring grammar) to teach them things based around subjects I know they like.\u00a0 I now know much more about FC Bayern and Star Wars than I ever wished to perhaps, which according to The Five Year old is no bad thing…<\/p>\n

And so far I have learned many more things from this experience too – more patience for example, and how Roald Dahl is possibly the best children’s author in the world, whichever country you are from.\u00a0 I have also learned just how rewarding it can be to see a child move on from repeatedly saying “yes no, yes no, yes no” to every question that he’s asked (in the hope that one of the them might be the right answer), and gradually gain enough confidence to read English out loud, and that has just been brilliant.\u00a0 This experience has also shown me how children are essentially the same, whichever background and culture they are from, and (I am ashamed to admit) it has also made me realise how awful I was at times to my own teachers – I am so very sorry!<\/p>\n

If you are about to embark on your own “teaching English as a Foreign Language” Journey, there are plenty of great resources to help.\u00a0 I have a found a few EFL Books invaluable, such as Teaching Children English as an Additional Language by Caroline Scott, 100 Great EFL Puzzles and Challenges by Adrian Bozon, and of course Teaching English as a Foreign Language for Dummies. \u00a0 There are some amazing websites that I constantly use\u00a0 – English for Everyone, which is good, and my personal favourite Twinkl<\/a>\u00a0a great Primary Years teaching site, which offers thousands of resources for free (there’s lots of Christmas<\/a> material on there at the moment too!),\u00a0 I go back to this site time and again for lesson prep. and for educational support.\u00a0 I also like the parent resource packs<\/a>, which include lots of useful things like homework and visual timetables, educational games and reward charts,\u00a0 so it’s definitely not just for teachers – although I use that word term very loosely when it comes to myself, obviously!…<\/p>\n

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