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Personal Reflection Of My Personal Experience In The Classroom

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As I enter the classroom for the first time every semester, I usually introduce myself to my new students. I pay attention to their body language and try to establish eye contact then, of course, I ask them to introduce themselves: I am particularly interested in knowing their name, age, hobbies but most importantly what difficulties they encounter in learning English. I listen carefully to their short presentations. My diagnostic is not only aimed at evaluating their linguistic skills but also, and just as importantly, focused on their personality.

In my experience as a teacher, I have found that there is always a reason behind every peculiar student behavior in class. For instance, in almost every class I have taught, there was at least one student who would refuse to utter a word or participate in class during the beginning of the semester. Unfortunately, a lot of teachers tend to label such students as ‘lazy’ or ‘strange’ before even knowing their story or trying to understand the reasons behind their introversion. My keen understanding that each student is unique, and that sometimes, a teacher must open his heart and lend a helping hand to a student who cannot articulate what is going on in his/her life at the time came from personal experience.

In fact, during my freshman year, I have developed a sudden but acute social anxiety disorder. I was 17 when I started my undergraduate studies at the University of Casablanca in Morocco. Moving to a big city, being away from my family for the first time in my life and other financial and personal factors have contributed to a classroom phobia that was intense and crippling especially when the classes involved students reading out loud or engaging their classmates. I did not have any immediate solution. Informing my parents about my difficulties was not ideal as I felt embarrassed if not ashamed by this situation. The fact that my university did not offer any counseling or coaching service did not help either. I felt I was all by myself struggling to overcome a situation that impeded my progress and hindered my potential. Nonetheless, I managed to graduate with a B.A in English, and I ranked third of my cohort.

In September 2002, I moved to France to pursue

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