ESSAY

Topic: Teaching is an art in itself

“ Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world”
(Nelson Mandela)
Not for no reason I opened my essay with this meaningful quotation of the well known person
N. Mandela. Teaching can be everything except from being a tiring profession , because when a
teacher teaches from his heart, and not from his book, the goal is achieved. It can be said that
to teach is like to learn twice , because you don’t just give knowledge, you earn it too. I made
this opening to start narrating for my third experience in teaching English language in a primary
school here in Durres city called“ Qemal Mici”. I used to give lessons in 6th and 8th classrooms.
Looking into their level it was enough to make an entertaining way of teaching having in count
their age. Why I say entertaining ? Because to teach does not mean teaching intensively ,
without giving pupils space to express their own opinions , ideas , comments, or even sharing
their experiences about different topics. It would have seemed as teaching mechanically , just
like robots. I said before “ an entertaining way of teaching because, I never stopped interacting
with pupils and treating them just like they are, little but grown up mentally and capable of
creating their own world by learning a new language , necessary and helpful in a future , in their
future.

Being a practicer the challenge was to be accepted just like a normal teacher in their school.
Eventhough the problem were not only the pupils. Guess what? Their parents too were the
problem of accepting practice in their children’s school. Anyway, different methodologies were
just acquired and ready to put them into practice in their classrooms. But my work consisted
also in having a general information about their level of English as a second language. That was
not a difficult thing, because in no more than two- three days was easily to find out how far
they could go with English language. As I previously mentioned communicative, grammar –
translation method and audio- lingual one were fully applied in all classrooms I was supposed to
deal with. Of course classroom management was another challenge we together would face, so
being “the good cop” with them was nice and successful way of maintaining the class quite and
all ready to get new knowledge every day.
“Qemal Mici “ primary school comparing to the last school I went as a practice called “
Kushtrimi I Ilirise” was not as much in high level of knowledge , but anyway was a pleasure for
me to get to know with pupils with middle level of knowledge in English language. Of course I
cannot let without mentioning , something very impressive to me such as in both 6 and 8th
classrooms there were two boys in each , who I called them as “ excellence of the class “ . They
were good at everything in English such as their rich vocabulary, their extra information about
different topics or their brilliant accent. They made me believe that there is hope for every child
who loves something can achieve everything. There is something else that was impressive to
me, but this time negatively. The fact that some pupils were treated by their English teacher
just like they were not in class. No. It is such demotivation you create on these pupils. They feel
they are not involved, they need to be involved, to feel equal with the others. I did that. I
treated them equally with the others, but just only for 30 hours of practice. While the point is
that they should feel involved all the time.
To conclude, I will end up with another teaching quotation too. Personal choice so to achieve a
subjective” narration” .
‘It is the supreme art of the teacher to awaken joy in creative expression and knowledge”.
(Albert Einstein)
In every line of this short essay you will find the explanation of ; Why this topic? Why this
choice of starting and ending it with quotation? Why all this subjectivity? Well, I have felt and
experienced every single moment of 30 hours of practice just in the way I have written.