Sheena Valero

After college, one of my first jobs was a part-time teaching position. To be honest, I never really saw myself as a teacher when I was studying English at UCLA. At best, I wanted to be a professor when I was near retirement. Nevertheless, God had other plans for me.

I was an online English tutor for six months for a start-up company based in Korea. It was a really interesting experience teaching a variety of students through interactive web tools. The students and I had web cams, which enabled us to see each other as we talked through our headsets. It was one-on-one instruction, so I only had one student at a time. I would upload lesson plans that the student could also see and even mark them up (underline, write notes, etc), with the student watching my every move. It was really fun for me to learn and I got the hang of it quickly. My supervisor welcomed creative ideas, which encouraged me to add more to the lessons and use the Internet to show my students pictures and maps of places they weren’t familiar with.

My students were all Koreans living in Korea. The best part about teaching was getting to know each one of them, their lifestyles, and culture. I learned a lot about the Korean way of life from them. Before then, I didn’t know that most Koreans who worked had 8 am to 10 pm schedules. It was even worse for the entrepreneur students I had who managed their own businesses. They told me that they would often take a client out for drinks after work to talk business and wouldn’t get home until 11 pm. They rarely took vacation and when they did, it was often business-related.

Yet, there was still a soft side to the Korean culture that really touched me. I discovered how much they treasured tradition, respected their elders, and commemorated their ancestors. A particular holiday that I thought was especially interesting was Ch’usok, or the Harvest Moon Festival, which occurs sometime in September or October. One of my students described Ch’usok as both a thanksgiving event and an ancient holiday dedicated to ancestors. Many travel far just to be with their loved ones on this special occasion.

This teaching position gave me the opportunity to get to know people from all walks of life, not to mention challenge my flexibility as a teacher. I had students from high school, college, working as professionals, and even an advanced English teacher. One of my students was a key investor of the company, which intimidated me at first. But, after a while, like the others, we enjoyed each other’s conversations and he looked forward to my teaching.

This teaching position gave me the opportunity to get to know people from all walks of life...

My favorite student was the English teacher living in a town south of Seoul. Coming in, he was already really knowledgeable about English, and so, it was a challenge for me to teach him something new. After assessing him, we determined that he could benefit most from working on his pronunciation. Throughout our course, we had many conversations -- about his job and life; we discussed philosophy, social issues, and religious ideologies. I even had the chance to share a little bit about my faith.

The job had its challenges, and I struggled with students many times while I taught them. Being a perfectionist, I was always determined to give more than 100 percent of myself to the job, which meant that if they couldn’t understand something, I would work with them until they did. I also filled in parts of the lesson plans that I felt missed a couple of explanations on conjugations, vocabulary, etc. I think what motivated me most was getting them to have a good grasp of the language. Their gratefulness overwhelmed me and made the job worthwhile.

I guess, that’s what I would say is the best thing about teaching -- the students. Yes, it may sound corny and trite, but I can definitely say it’s the truth. I have always enjoyed helping people and teaching allows me to do this in such amazing ways. As a teacher, I couldn’t help myself from caring about my students, even though they were thousands of miles away. I respect teachers for so many reasons now and mainly because I believe they love for a living. Now, how cool is that?

- Sheena Valero, 1 April 2009