My way of life

My teaching experience is 17 years. I’ve achieved a lot but still I’m eager to learn, study and teach because it’s my calling. Rain or shine, healthy or not, I remember that there are children who are waiting for me and trust me. I know that I’ll feel better as soon as I enter the classroom and see happy faces of my kids. I touch their souls and they respond with their cheery smiles and friendly looks. It’s a great deed – to give children something good and sacred – the joy of studying. I not only teach kids but I also teach my colleagues since I‘ve been the head of the school English teachers’ methodological association for 9 years. My responsibility is to give our teachers practical tips on conducting interactive lessons and to acquaint them with innovative teaching techniques.

My great desire is to share my experience with British teachers and grasp new strategies of teaching English with pleasure. I’d like to know more about such notions as “tolerance” and “cultural diversity”, how to manage the class, how to establish democratic relationships in the classroom. I’m eager to communicate, interact and make new friends. Only aspiring teachers strive for new goals, thus achieving wonderful results.

Now I can say with a firm believe that being a teacher is an inborn diagnosis which can’t be cured by any doctors, it’s in you blood, in your mind, in each cell of your body. Being a teacher is your way of life and state of your soul. Only great teachers can inspire, facilitate and mould genuine citizens of the society.

Teacher … what can be compared?

Artist, sculptor or an actor?

Poet, inventor or creator?

Someone who will not surrender

If they difficulties meet.

Being a teacher is terrific,

Gorgeous, marvelous, indeed;

Being a teacher is devotion

And enormous love for kids!

I’m a teacher, this is splendid,

To betray it I’ve never dreamt.

It’s my job to touch the souls,

It’s my job to mould them,

I’m proud to be called “a teacher”

It will never be another way!

I SUPPOSE I’LL NEVER DIE

I am in my profession… Brrr! It sounds inappropriate for me! Paraphrasing a famous phrase about theatre said by the main heroine in the movie “The Elder Sister”, I could ask you: “Do you love school as I do? Could you go there, live there and die there? ” For some teachers the phrase “I am in my profession” sounds more natural; however, speaking personally, I’d change it for “My profession inside me.” Perhaps, I am not a teacher of an egocentric type because I dislike showing off. It means I have an aversion to demonstration lessons which are prepared by a teacher with the help of month rehearsals. I experience the same emotions hearing the titles of contests such as “Teacher of the Year.” Thus, joining your contest was a challenge for me. The American principle “I am the best, I am the brightest teacher” is not my cup of tea. I know that my attitude is a contrasting one but it also has a right for existence.

How to evaluate my past successes in teaching? How to make a good teacher? Maybe, my students’ knowledge, their life choices will be an answer to these questions. If they choose to follow your career, to my mind, it speaks louder than words. For the last several years, 9 of my students entered the department of foreign languages. Some of them have become good teachers or they show their good command of English in other spheres of life.

I’d like to stress the fact that I don’t know any special secrets in teaching. Maybe, I’m not so strong in methodology and I would call myself an intuitive teaching educator. I’m not a guru in English but everything I do comes from my heart. Every day I teach starts for me as the first one in my life. Every day I experience very hard moments: “Is it the very profession I have chosen? ” but while being in hesitation I live, I teach, I get results because I am supported by the phrase “To teach kids is to touch the future”. So I suppose I’ll never die. I’ll simply set off to the future.