Great news today! I had a student, Lorea, for the past few weeks that was preparing to take an entrance exam to the university she was applying for. She was going for the translation program at the university and needed to pass this test with high scores to be accepted. She had been coming for some weeks and was great at English - like amazing for an 18 year old girl! I was so excited for her to take the test and realize how good she was, but she was really nervous. I wrote her a text message Monday morning, the day of her test, and wished her good luck and to let me know how the test went. Well, she just wrote me back and said that she was sooooo nervous but that the writing portion of the test was so easy for English and the only trouble she had was thinking of the appropriate word of the Basque translation sometimes. She said the listening was a bit challenging but she thought it was ok. What she was most scared about was the speaking portion of the test. She had to select a photo at random and talk about it for 15 minutes after introducing herself. She told me that she introduced herself and with the test moderators she talked about Jane Austin, her favorite English literature and about her studies. She said when she started to talk about the picture, the moderators said 'well I think this will be enough' and she was so scared because she hadn't even started about the photo and they told her not to worry that they could see she had a very high level of speaking and they didn't need her to speak about a photo to see that!
Lorea was so sweet - she wrote me thank you for all my help and support for the test! Hopefully when she writes me next time, it is to tell me that she made it into the program - which I am sure she will!
It was so great to get a thank you - to realize that what you are doing is really helping someone! I was so happy when I got the email and was clapping while reading it and my roommate asked me why I was so excited. He was suprised that I was so concerned and into my students' success and I said of course!! I love when my students come in and show me thier test scores, or share experiences when they use English.
Another favorite moment was with my 12 year old girls. We are learning future tense in class and they are still working on present tense in thier school. They were suprised we were so far ahead and kind of saying that its silly to be this far ahead of class. I just keep telling them that when they finally start to learn this in school that it will be a breeze for them and that they should try and use thier more advanced English in thier English class. One girl came back to class the next week and was so estatic to tell me a story. She said her teacher had asked her to say a sentence in the present simple. She said she replied with 'I often go to piano lessons after class but today I am going to the beach' or something like that - she used the FUTURE! She said her teacher was in awe and all the students were super impressed! Hooray!
Off to the beach for the morning then to work again, but just wanted to take a second and share some of my rewarding moments with you guys! It's always nice to realize how much you really do like your job, and this week was a good one for that!
Besos!
Amanda
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