I was surprised to learn that for most of the students at Cilc, Suzanne and I were the first Americans they had met. We taught class tonight, without our host teacher, which forced the students to communicate only in English. In class we analyzed the lyrics and meaning of the song, "Style" by Taylor Swift, plotted points on a four quadrant graph and answered many questions that the students had about life in America. All of the students participated and worked extremely hard for us. In the evening our host teacher had received many messages from her students telling her how much they enjoyed class. One message in particular stuck out.
It read: "Hi Teacher! I'm gonna try to express my feelings in English. I just wanna thank you for being this great teacher. Your classes always make me feel happy and very excited about the language. You make me like the language more. I know that I am a hard student but I really try to hear to talk because I think that you deserve our best. Because I know that you do your best every class. I just want to thank you. You are amazing. Thanks for working so hard to teach us what you know. Today I realize how important was what you said to us. I saw that is possible to speak and understand them. And you make this for us. Of course I spoke to much kkkk because I'm this way. I tried and I did....So...just thanks...I hope that I've write it right kkk..."
The teacher has always stressed the importance of learning the English language and being in touch with foreigners. Tonight when we were in their class, the students had the opportunity to test their abilities. It was a great class for the students to realize that their hard work, over the past several years, did pay off and that native English speakers could easily understand them. It was a real life affirmation that now has motivated them to continue to persevere towards reaching all of their life long goals.