Czech Lesson Reflection

A few weeks ago I was given the opportunity to do something that many teachers can only dream of—I was offered the chance to teach a lesson in a local Czech school. This was an especially exciting task for me because I’ve always wanted to live abroad and teach English in a local school of whatever country I choose. Ever since I can remember, I’ve been very interested in foreign countries’ education systems, and this assignment gave me the perfect taste of what Czech schools were like.

The whole teaching experience was a pretty whirlwind event because we were not given much time to prepare our lesson. Even though the topics for the lesson were endless, it was a bit of a challenge trying to decide what my partner and I thought was most important to teach the Czech students. We decided on a simpler lesson that would allow us to teach for the first half and then play a game for the second half. We hoped that this would make the lesson more enjoyable for the children. The teaching part of the lesson went really well, and I really felt that the students understood most of what we were trying to teach them. They were all very enthusiastic and willing to participate in the lesson. The best part of the day by far was seeing the children’s faces light up when they got a question right. Their reaction to the entire lesson was truly heartwarming. I have to admit, I was a little worried at first that the children wouldn’t respond well to us or that they wouldn’t be willing to use their English, but once we went through the lesson with them and explained the game, they were all very eager to participate. The only thing I would’ve done differently is if we had known exactly how good the students’ English was, I would’ve liked to have made the lesson more English-level appropriate. I felt that part of our lesson was too easy for the students, and I would’ve liked to challenge them a bit more.

This experience further confirmed my want to become a teacher because even though we were only able to spend roughly an hour with the children, it wasn’t hard to tell how excited the students were to be able to interact with Americans and practice their English. My experience at the Czech school was definitely an adjustment from what I’m used to in the United States, but I thought it was good practice if I do end up teaching in a foreign country someday. I had a great time with the students and only wish that we would’ve had another chance to teach an English lesson.