| Few months ago, on April 2008, I started teaching at one of the children English Course in Surabaya. At first I did not mean to apply for the job as a part time teacher there, but my friend kept offering me that position and it made me ask myself: “Why don't I try? Nothing to lose, right?” Well, to be honest, at that time, I felt a little bit afraid since I did not have any experience in teaching English in a CLASSROOM, especially the classroom with children or young learners in it. I am giving a private lesson for several students, but most of them are high school students. I only have 3 elementary students.
At first, my job was only to substitute the other part time teacher who were absent or on leave, but after a month, finally I got my own class. I was a little bit nervous entering my own class at that time. I was afraid that the children would not be able to accept me, to adjust with the new situation. The first half an hour on my first meeting was quiet terrible. Just few minutes before the class started, the children (There are 5 students in my class; all of them are girls around 10 – 11 years old) brought their former teacher to the class and asked her to teach them right in front of my face. Can you imagine that???
It didn't stop there. The first half an hour, the class looks like a graveyard. They acted like a robot; only opening their mouth to answer my questions (which I had repeated for several times) with short answers. I was confused how to control my class, how to get their trust, how to make the situation become more comfortable for the teaching – learning process, how to develop my students curiosity. Those questions were running on my head while I was explaining about a topic at that time.
The suddenly, the situation was changed. It started only with this kind of question: “Do you know what a gift is?” All of them were quiet. Then I said, “Well, let make it this way then. I'll give you some clues related with it and when you have found out what it is, just mention it. OK?”, “Listen carefully! Here comes the first clue: You will be very happy to receive it. Can you guess it? Second clue: You usually receive it on your birthday.” Then can you imagine what happen? They suddenly shouted: “Ow, a present!” After that, there was no quiet class anymore. Our relationship grew better. I learned that holding such fun activities like Hangman or other activities will be able to arise your young learners' interest and will help them to learn more and more knowledge.
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