Examination Card 18

Talk about your plans for the future.  Include this information:

• the place you are going to study at;
• the profession that is after your heart;
• what you are going to do to prepare yourself for your future.

When I finish school, I am planning to enter a university and get a diploma of a teacher. I would like to teach English at a secondary school. I have chosen to become a teacher because teaching is a challenging profession and I think I have the necessary qualities to meet these challenges.

From my point of view, two most important qualities of good teachers are patience and resourcefulness. Teachers should be patient as they often have to explain the same material to their pupils several times. If the pupils don’t understand, teachers shouldn’t get angry at them. Instead, they should think of some other ways to explain, that is, they should be resourceful.

I discovered that I have these qualities quite accidentally. Our next door neighbors have a daughter who is in the 5th grade. Her parents don’t know English, so the girl often asks me to help her with her English homework. Once she had to learn the names of foods for her classroom dictation.
I dictated the words to her several times but each time she made lots of mistakes. “I can’t memorize the words”, she said. Then an idea came to my head. “You are just tired”, I said. “Let’s take a break and play the game The Dragon is Starving.” 

I took a funny toy dragon from my bookshelf and placed it on the table. Then I said: “This dragon is very hungry. Let’s feed him.” My pupil had to write one word on a piece of paper and give it to the dragon. If the word was spelled correctly, the dragon said in my voice: “I like it, thanks.” If the word had a mistake, the dragon said: “Oh, I can’t eat this. I’m starving! I’m going to die!” The girl didn’t want the dragon to die, so she quickly learnt all the words. 

However, patience and resourcefulness alone aren’t enough for a person to become a good teacher. I’m convinced that good teachers should be organized and they should have a good knowledge of their subject. As I have some problems with these aspects, I’m trying to take steps to develop these qualities. Firstly, I’m trying to organize my daily routine according to the timetable I’ve made for myself. Secondly, I’m trying to improve my English. I listen to English songs, read books and watch movies in English on TV.
I hope that the time and effort I’m investing into my studies will help my dream to come true.