Thinking back, I feel a little funny that in the past three years, I taught three batches of students for only one year respectively. I was transferred to senior three after I taught Senior One students for one year. When the two graduating classes left school, I returned to senior one again. Now one year has passed, and they will be reshuffled into different classes, for they have to choose either science or liberal arts at the end of the first year in Senior High School.

Being a teacher, I’ve seen many students come and go. However, I would always feel a sense of loss. When we finally get a bit familiar, it’s just time for us to say goodbye. To tell the truth, it’s still possible to get them mixed up. I’m not a person who is good at remembering others’ names, but their faces will remain in my mind for quite a long time, especially the looks of expectancy in their eyes.

People often say that teaching is an art. Here I would like to say teaching is an art of cooperation. I believe he/she is not a qualified teacher if there’s no love and devotion involved in the teaching process. However, students, on their part, should learn to respect the teachers and their work. Mutual understanding and respect is the key to successful teaching and learning. I know it’s a mission impossible for me to be liked by all the students I teach. However, I always try to put myself in students’ shoes. This is the least I can and should do as a teacher. It’s not easy being a teacher nowadays, but being a student, especially a good student, could be even harder.

It’s a huge challenge to learn a foreign language in China, which is completely a Chinese environment. To produce brilliant students, we have to push a little bit, and sometimes we have to be strict with them. Possible misunderstanding could occur. Being a teacher we must learn to forgive and forget. After all they’re just kids. I think as long as we have them in our heart, they will eventually see it and choose to cooperate with us. What a student needs most is a teacher’s encouragement, especially when they meet with difficulties. Never think little of the impact of the small words of encouragement from us teachers.

I feel quite good about these students. On the whole it is a pleasant and happy process. Maybe we were fortunate, maybe our efforts moved God. The fact is that we achieved great success, academically speaking. The two classes almost always took the first and second places in the whole grade, which is something beyond my wildest imagination. I don’t know how many of you will be my students again, but the laughter and tears we shared, the time we spent together will be hard to fade away in the years ahead..