My name is James Sherwood and I am currently teaching my fifth year at Happy Marian. Let me say congratulations to you parents for choosing Happy Marian. I believe the strength of our rigorous, varied curriculum and dedicated staff make it the best choice for your child to learn high quality English, and no doubt you feel the same.
In my time at happy Marian, I’ve taken a kindergarten class from J1 to graduation, as well as taught several different elementary level classes. This year, I am teaching J3 and P2 levels. In many ways the classes represent two extremes of the spectrum. My J3 class is full of exuberant young boys; while P2 is almost completely quieter, more mature girls. I appreciate the differences and would like to talk a little today about differences and similarities in my approach to different students.
As a teacher, you must be able to simultaneously meet the needs of individuals while steering the group to its destination. Sometimes this is not easy, and sometimes finding the right approach can take a little while. At the end of the day, the goals for my classes are the same: we are here to learn and achieve our best, but we want to have fun while doing it. I think to be able to make the class fun for everyone; you really need to be a friend on the students’ level. For my J class, that means building relations at playtime in Wonder Island, as well as being someone they can rely on for help when they need it. On the other hand, for my older students, I find they value talking about their lives, so I usually take five or ten minutes at the beginning of a class to ask them about their day or weekend. Of course, I encourage them to ask me questions too and I answer them like equals. (This is great not only for building relationships but also for practicing conversation!)
It’s important to realize that every child is different and expectations should be held in light of each child’s potential. In my first J1 class, I had a student who taught herself to read completely independent of her parents or me! You can imagine I was thrilled and challenged her more and more.
However, not all students are like her. I’ve had one boy who needed a lot of attention and would look for it in any way. I figured him out and began giving him positive attention before he could look for it in negative ways, as well giving him extra responsibilities around the class that he could feel good about.
Some students require a hands-off approach. Others need more structure and discipline. Whatever their needs, I try to identify them and adjust my approach so that in the end, we all arrive at the same destination.
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