English Home Lesson with Naya: Nerve-wrecking but Thrilling

Assalaamu'alaikum. Hi, journal. I'm back. Here I'm writing about one of "my successes" today. So, aside from the things I completed today, there was one which became the highlight, i.e. Teaching Khinaya Neisha Davina an English home lesson. Khinaya completed primary education at Al Azhar 55 last year and is now attending SMP 4 Pakem. It is one of the most recognized public junior high in Sleman. 

The story started last week when her mother texted me via WA. I taught Khinaya when she was in grade 1 and grade 6, therefore I know her. She said that to maintain Khinaya's English proficiency, in all the four skills, she invited me to teach her. I thought this invitation came after her mother asked Ms. Vita who can help Khinaya. At first I hesitated as to work in the evening need's my wife's agreement. However, since we need money, she agreed as long as we still have some family time in a week. 

After her mother, Khinaya texted me herself. She wanted to have it on Monday. And today was the first day. Home lesson teaching has been none of my part time job for years. Therefore it was quite frightening to face it. Even thinking of that made me alert already. Lucky that although today I did not have a class to teach, except for Library Visit, I kept being busy by finishing copying English worksheets and doing the other class things such as discussing the Alsonta case with those who were involved, helping Kherin and El's mother fix their child's email address, grading students' Reading worksheet, etc. Being busy kept me away from the nervousness.

However, when it was Maghrib time and the agreed time came closer, my heart thumped hard. I got more nervous. I was thinking of failing the first meeting due to my unpreparedness. Although the thoughts kept lingering on my mind, drove my motorbike to her house which is located not far from Sekolah Al Azhar Cairo. I left home at around 6.45 and got there at around 7.15. Thus it took me around 30 minutes to get there. I almost went too far, but then I managed to call Neisha and alhamdulillah she picked up the call. Actually I was standing outside of her house actually.

When I got there, she let me in. We had the lesson in the guest room. Once I was inside, Khinaya prepared her course book, note book, and pencil case. The first thing I did then was inviting her to have a chit-chat, then I asked her what she actually wanted to learn about ordinal numbers. to write the answers to the questions I have prepared. She did it passionately. She even could answer all the spelling bee challenge correctly.  

All in all, the first lesson went well. Although I got nervous at the beginning, I could find what to do. So, I decided to have a chit chat with her to get her practice speaking. our communication was intense that