The English levels of my students vary from student to student, even within the same grade at the same school. Some of my 6th graders don't even know their ABC's while some of my 3rd graders can carry on their own small conversations with me. A few of my 6th graders have such good English that we can converse quite well and on more diverse subjects.

At my Monday school I have a student named Michael whose English isn't bad and whose personality is so energetic and intense that he can get pretty bored in class. At times he'll repeat the dialogues very loudly and other times he entertains himself by teasing the girls sitting around him. He's one of my 'high maintenance' students - but I like him a lot!

A couple of weeks ago was midterms week here in Taiwan. My 100+ 6th graders took their English test in the morning and then during their English classes in the afternoon we went over the answers. Michael is in the last 6th grade class I teach on Monday. That afternoon when he got his test back he was pretty upset. I leaned over to my co-teacher and asked how he'd done.

"He didn't do very well." She replied. "Would you like to talk to him?"

I said that I did, so she called on him and the three of us went out into the hall while the rest of the students worked on correcting their tests. I was pretty sure that he had been overconfident about the test and that he hadn't been focused. I can't say concentration is one of his strong points.

"You didn't do very well, huh?" I began.

Michael shook his head. He didn't need much translation from my co-teacher throughout my entire pep talk.

"You can't let things like this discourage you or make you feel sorry for yourself. Let it make you want to work harder. You know you can do better and I know you can, too. Next time you'll do better."

He shrugged disconsolately.

"Hey! You are not afraid to speak English. That is really important! You talk to me all the time. Maybe the other kids did better on their tests than you did, but they are afraid to speak English!"

My co-teacher spoke to him a little in Chinese and then as we turned to go back into the classroom I added encouragingly,

"Jia you!" [This is the Chinese equivalent of cheering someone on.]

He nodded.

He spent the rest of the class writing out his homework with a very resolute look on his face.


The next week, during the break before Michael's class, he walked into the English classroom. The previous class had left and I was erasing the chalkboard. After greeting me a little glumly, he walked over to the English-Chinese dictionaries and picked one up. He shuffled through it a bit, but couldn't find what he was looking for, so he came back over to me and sat down with a sigh.

"How are you?" I began.

"Not good."

"Aw, why?"

"Because..." he paused. "I like a girl, but..."

"She doesn't like you?" I finished for him.

"Yeah."

"Oh, that's okay. You are young." [I'm actually kinda cracking up inside at this point. 6th grade romance... oh my.]

He walked over to the shelves in the back of the room where the workbooks are. He picked one up and brought it over to me.

"This one. 5th grade. 4th class. Number 21."

He sighed again and said something in Chinese that I didn't understand and he didn't know how to say in English. Just then my co-teacher came in and he asked her. We figured out that it had a meaning along the lines of 'a disappointed crush.'

"He's... uh..." She hesitated.

"Heartbroken?" I ventured.

"Yes!"

[Imagine being heartbroken at 12... I'm still not sure how I kept from laughing.]

Anyway, ever since that one talk during midterms week, Michael has treated me differently. He looks up to me and wants my approval. A look during class time will usually quell any rowdiness and a smile will provoke enthusiastic participation and attention. He still greets me as usual with his frank, 'Good morning, Teacher!' Only now it's like he knows that I expect a lot from him - and he enjoys the challenge.

I share this because God is teaching me a lot this year. He's teaching me about things I had never even thought about learning. He's exposing my roughness. He's not only training me in my personal life or even about how to tell others about Him - although He is definitely doing that too! I suppose it's really the methods He's using to instruct me. Things are becoming real instead of just theories. It's the rubber-meets-the-road stuff. Living out loud. He's teaching me a lot about people, especially kids. He's teaching me a lot about teaching. Even though I don't do so well on my 'tests' sometimes, He has been faithful to help me be motivated for more growth. And I enjoy the challenge. Extremely.