El fin

My students are learning! I was greatly intimidated at first to try to teach people so different from me a language as crazy as English in a language not my own. However, I am finding it gratifying to realize at this point that the students who have proven to be most dedicated and who have developed a relationship with me through patience and good attitude have learned something! I am now able to note baby steps of progress in adult students and schoolchildren and in myself.

While it is important to me to note progress, I keep in mind that easily they could learn without me in their lives, easily it could be someone else in their paths teaching them, easily they could improve their lives without my presence. The resources are here. The keys to their learning remain in their own hands.

These keys include the willingness to seek knowledge despite feelings of ineptitude and awkwardness and to listen to and involve others, the initiative to take responsibility for and engage themselves in their own learning, and the commitment to practice putting it into practice on a regular basis so that it is cemented into their minds and ingrained in their habits.

I understand that what they are learning is at best minimally important within the greater context of their entire lives, but I am glad to have been present at this stage and to have been a part of their lives and learning nonetheless.