First Experience as a Teacher

The language bridge program (LBP) has been an amazing journey for me. I first joined this program as I was getting credits for my history course. We attended two days of training by Prof. Silvia before meeting our students. One the first day, we were taken to the student’s accommodation in Pearl in a car arranged by UDC. It was fun as all of my friends were with me. We discussed how we are going to take the class with other teachers. The accommodation was very beautiful and their living conditions were also quite good. I took my first class with Amalan and Bharath. It was little awkward in the beginning as it was the very first time that any of us were teaching people who were elder than us. However, the students were also shy and not very interactive and participative as LPB was a first experience for most of them. We did not really get an opportunity to see the place completely but were assured that we would be taken on a tour the next time. Unfortunately, we were informed that the next classes will be taken in CMUQ. This decision, however, proved to be a good one as we could save our time that we spent on travelling and could use better technology provided in CMUQ. The students also got an opportunity to sit in our classrooms and experience a real college like life. The rest of the few classes went by well. However, then we realized that we are not doing enough justice to the students and should do something that they are really interested in. We asked them about their interests and they told us that they wanted to improve their speaking and grammar. We, thereby, went on to developing material that concentrated on grammar and tenses. Then unfortunately, the students did not turn up to class in week 4-5 as they had to go to some personal work. We felt as if something was missing as we had set a fixed amount of time for teaching. We resumed classes after that week and decided to do the maximum that we can in the remaining weeks. We got dinner for them on the last day of classes as we knew that they come for classes in their dinner time. The students were really happy and we were equally glad to be able to do something for them. We were also asked to teach them a song that we would all sing on the final graduation day. On the graduation day, all the students were really happy and dressed up. We gave away certificates and took group pictures. Then we sang the group song with all the other LBP classes and the students showed great enthusiasm as they waved their national flag. The program ended with a grand dinner and the students were really happy with it. We spoke to most of our students after dinner and they told us that they will surely come back to this program next year as it was a great experience for them. All in all, it was an amazing experience for me as this program helped me grow as an individual and realize how lucky we are with whatever we have. Also, I felt satisfied with the fact that I was able to make an impact in someone else’s life. I would definitely do this program whenever I get an opportunity as it provides a great means by which we can give something back to the society. I would like to thank everyone who gave us an opportunity to be a part of this program including Professor Silvia, Julie, Meshael, Fatima and Shivani.