wish me luck

Last week I started working again - I'm an ESL teacher at a language school that deals especially with Korean children, but I've been away from work for the last six months because of my overseas adventure. Last week I started with two boys aged thirteen and fourteen, who have reasonably okay English. The elder has been here four years so he understands a lot. And I was surprised to find myself really enjoying it, because I had dreaded going back to work.

This week, though... my boss asked me to take on another couple of hours on Thursdays, and before I heard anything about it, I agreed - then found out it would be with two small children, aged five or six, who only speak very simple English and can't really read or write yet. *screeeeeech* As you can probably tell from my blog, I find it hard to say things simply. I love teaching English from a technical point of view, but I have to be able to explain stuff, and mostly I've taught kids who are aged ten and up. In this lesson I will have to somehow fill two hours with "Cat. Caaaaaaatttttt. C. A. T. Cat." Okay, so my boss has given me a few more ideas than that, and a few resources to help me with this, and I am also armed with a game of Memory in case I really lose it. But I am so nervous. I told my boss I'd prefer to go into this on the understanding that if I really couldn't handle it I could pull out after a couple of weeks. But I'd rather not look wimpy and incompetent. Wish me luck!

UPDATE (22 Feb): So I've done it. And it was difficult. I won't be so terrified about it in future, but I think the two hours I spend with these kids every week is going to be hard work. Their spoken English is worse than I thought it would be so it makes it very hard to communicate certain things to them. They're both rather bouncy, as indeed most five or six year olds are, but the little boy is just a little too bouncy to stay tuned for two whole hours, even one. Oh well. Some of the teachers at school have to have about eight kids at once. I'm lucky. And the nice thing is that another teacher takes them on Tuesdays, so I can chat to him about what works or doesn't work with them.