Our class, CEP @Teachers College

Well, to tell you the truth at the beginning of our class I was quite a bit nervous. I was nervous about teaching in a new situation and also meeting new students. You know, almost all of my teaching experience has been in Indonesia, my home country. Although I had taught before in Canada (1996) and gave some presentations at international conferences, I was still nervous. But when I started to know the students in my class I felt so much better. Now I know that all of you guys are very good learners. You have very positive attitude towards learning. You have always shown great enthusiasm in class, never hesitate to take risks in learning and always want to do more and more. I am sure every teacher will feel as happy as I am now to have such wonderful students like all of you.

So far, I can say that I am quite happy with some progress that you have made with your English. I can see that all of you have been trying to take more risks in speaking and experimenting with the language. What also makes me happy is that how our class has started to be like a small community, just like a family. Everybody is helping each other. I remember one day, when the class was over some of you were still in the class discussing the lesson, and helping each other with explaining some grammar points. Also last week I learned that some of you visited your classmate's house and had some wonderful time. It is a great atmoshere! Keep it up.

And please remember not to be afraid in making mistakes in learning a language. Don't be so obsessed with grammar. Learning a language is not like learning math. There are a lot of exceptions and special cases. So take your time to digest all of them. Making mistakes is part of the learning process, just like all the skills in the world. Well, just like cooking, swimming, dancing, or playing the piano. We have to make mistakes in hte process to be better. The secret is to keep learning from the mistakes and keep improving. So be relaxed about them. Also, don't use translation too much. Try to be more spontaneous when you speak or write, Use what you remember, not what you don't remember. Well, I will show you more later in class.

As for now I hope you are enjoying your Sunday! Ciao!