I felt very excited about the experience of being an English teacher for a double period. I first thought it would just be a piece of cake for me because I had seen other teachers who could handle their lessons with confidence and ease. Regrettably, this didn’t happen to me.
When I walked into the classroom, my classmates were shocked since Ms Ng and I had swapped our roles. They were first shocked and started laughing. I thought they were overwhelmed by this weird and great change. I frowned at one of my best friends, Christy, who immediately told the class to keep quiet.
I cleared my voice and held the microphone in order to start my first lesson. When trying to utter the first word, I felt panic and couldn’t open my mouth. My mind was stuck and blood rushed up my face to make my face brush like an apple. I realized that speaking in front of the whole class especially in English was more challenging and frightening than I had imagined.
After a while, I calmed myself down and started the lesson. When I looked at the teacher’s book, there were lots of tiny red words as notes which made me feel dizzy. Some of the words were even not familiar to me! Whenever I pronounced and spelled the words wrongly, the whole class laughed uncontrollably, which made me feel embarrassed and ashamed. At that moment, Ms Ng stood up and helped me to control the classroom discipline. Thanks so much for her rescue.
Standing for a double period made my legs tired. I wondered how Ms Ng could be so energetic even though some lessons were just after lunch.
After this experience, I found that the job of a teacher is more respectable than I thought. Teachers need to devote their time to lesson preparation, marking books and drawing up teaching schedules, which demand lots of mental and physical effort. Moreover, classroom discipline is no joke but a splitting headache. From now on I am going to cherish and feel thankful to what the teachers have done for us.