“Please don’t stop pushing me.”
Muy dificil, muy dificil….
Moan and whine. Whine and moan. Martha complained every day.
Every. Single. Day.
She didn’t want to study. She didn’t want to learn. She didn’t want to see me. She didn’t want to see her book. She hated English.
BUT…
I didn’t believe her. Yes, learning a new language at her age was difficult. Yes, being so far her home in Mexico was sad. Yes, she would rather do something easy and familiar. We all would. But I knew Martha needed to learn English. Martha knew it too. I kept pushing her, and amazingly, she kept learning. Little by little, Martha was getting better with her second language. She hated our classes, but she also didn’t want to stop. Your students need you to be strong, confident, and consistent. Your students need you to push them. Sure, they’ll sometimes want to quit, and they’ll sometimes hate your class.
Don’t lose heart. Sooner or later (probably later) your students will realize that they needed what you were teaching them. They will realize how lucky they were to learn something new. Even when Martha wanted to quit, I knew she didn’t mean it. She was thinking it, but Martha would never say: Please don’t stop pushing me.
What about you? How do you respond to students who want to give up?
Go to the next:
What They’re Not Telling You (8 of 10)
