Over the past three years as an ESL instructor, I have recorded many interesting stories about my meetings with my students. Below is an entry from November 15, 2023.
My Wednesday meeting with my Korean student was as insightful as ever. This time, she shared a heartwarming story about her daughter’s after-school learning experience.
Each day after school, her daughter attends an academy. When they return home, mother and daughter tackle homework together. Sometimes, the mother pretends not to know a word, asking her daughter to explain it. This clever tactic allows the daughter to step into the teacher's role, fostering a sense of responsibility. When the mother makes mistakes and the daughter assertively insists, "Say it three times," the mother plays along, encouraging her daughter's enthusiasm for teaching.
This approach creates a wonderful dynamic of teamwork and mutual growth. The daughter takes great joy in teaching her mother, and the act of teaching reinforces her own learning. It’s a smart method of instilling responsibility, developing maturity, and boosting leadership skills in a young child.
By involving her daughter in teaching, the mother not only enhances her child's learning experience but also teaches an invaluable lesson in responsibility and self-motivation. This unique mother-daughter collaborative learning demonstrates how learning can be a shared, fun, and enriching experience, where both mother and daughter grow together.
After the meeting, I kept imagining the mother-daughter teacher-play scene. Their collaboration in education exemplifies how learning can be a journey of mutual growth, making the process enjoyable and deeply rewarding for both, and surely will leave a lot of memorable moments.