The first time I stood in front of twenty teenage boys in the Arab Gulf to teach an English class, I was terrified. I had no previous education training or experience—whatsoever. The pace at which my students spoke Arabic was torrid at a minimum, so needless to say I understood very little of what was being said. On top of all of this, I was the only female in the room. What had my Cross-Cultural Internship through Frontiers gotten me into?
In the slowest, clearest English my shaky voice could muster, I began.
“Good morning, students.”
As the weeks passed, I began to learn the different levels and abilities of my students and could plan my lessons much better. I picked up a few tricks on helping my students stay engaged and excited about learning, like a Frisbee I brought. It was an instant hit that I worked into almost every class. Hangman was my go-to activity when desperation hit with twenty minutes left before dismissal. Most days felt like a feeble attempt at controlled chaos.
After an entire summer, my students still struggled to correctly pronounce the word paper (which they called “baber”) and most of them got C’s in the class thanks to the hated exams. But during breaks, rather than going outside to play, they began staying inside to teach me the Arabic alphabet and they even drew my name surrounded by hearts in the dust on my car before they left the last day. We also laughed a lot. Hearing accented voices mimicking my over usage of words like “awesome” and “oh my goodness” proved I had impacted them at least a little!
Despite my best intentions at the start to impact the lives of the kids, it turned out that in the end, they were the ones who impacted me. It doesn’t take much to remind me of my time in that place. Certain Middle Eastern accents bring the familiar chorus of “Teacher! Teacher!” instantly to my mind. I believe a breakthrough is coming in that region, which is why I have committed to going back. I’ll move there next year to stay as long as God allows, which is something I couldn’t have foreseen from my view that first day of class.
**This account comes from a cross-cultural intern.**
Original article: www.frontiersusa.org/blog/article/the-first-day-of-class
