My best lessons during my 120 supervised teaching hours were the ones where learners were so busy doing something real — deciding, debating, creating — that they forgot I was teaching them language. That is…
One observation feedback I received during my 120 supervised teaching hours stayed with me: 'The activities were good, but I couldn't see why they were in that order.' A lesson is not a pile of…
I made errors in French every day for three years. The best teachers let me talk first and corrected me after. The worst interrupted mid-sentence and I'd lose the word, the idea, and the confidence.…
The best moment in any class I taught was when a learner produced the language I was trying to teach — before I had written it on the board. That is eliciting: drawing language from…
My trainer said it in week one and I've never forgotten: 'Do you understand?' is the least useful question in a classroom. The only honest answer is 'yes' — because 'no' is embarrassing. You want…
In the feedback room after a lesson observation, the first question is always the same: 'What was your main aim?' If you can't answer in one clear sentence, the lesson was probably unclear. I had…
I am a different person in Bengali than I am in English. In Bengali I am the eldest son, formal, respectful, quieter. In English — the English I learned in Sydney on kerbs and in…
My neighbour in Strathfield was a Greek-Australian woman in her seventies. She knocked on my door three days after I arrived with a plate of spanakopita. She said, 'You look thin. Eat.' I didn't know…
In Australia and then in France, I wrote dozens of letters to immigration, housing, tax authorities. Every time, the language had to be right — not just grammatically, but in tone. Too casual: dismissed. Too…
For the first two years in Sydney I nodded at things I didn't understand. I was ashamed to ask. I would nod, walk away, and then try to figure it out alone. One day my…
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Sourov Deb EI · SIRET 106 764 061 00011 · Saint-Pierre, La Réunion