A Valentine

This is a letter from one of my students. I left the mistakes in; we're still working on forming grammatically-correct sentences. But I found it really touching and inspiring:

I just wanna let you know that you are one of my favorite teacher that I have in this school. I would like you to be my teacher for ESL. When I go home I talk to my mom about how you show us or teach. The different kinds of things that we do in your class. I would like you always be my teacher for 10, 11, 12 grade. When I come to your class I feel so good because you know that I come to learn something that you do. I feel proud of your work because I learn different kinds of things and when I go to my regular classes I already know because you teach me what I have to learn and so I can use what you teach me on other classes. I hope you the best on all the works that you get because I love you like if you were one of my best, best friends in this world.

Thank you 4 everything.

Sincerely

L

Now, you have to understand something about L. When I met her in the fall, she was almost non-verbal. She was learning English as a second language and, although bright, had almost no working vocabulary. She was getting poor grades, because she was too shy to get help from her teachers, so she ended up in my class to try to make up some credits.

Over the past two terms, she has become one of my best students. She is extremely motivated and just soaks up information like a little sponge, and although she's still not the first one to raise her hand or offer answers, L. does amazing work.

Her letter is a little misleading. I think she gives me far too much credit for her success. Still, it's wonderful to know that the in-class activities have done what they were supposed to do. And it shows me that I'm at least doing something right.

It's funny, though. I don't know if you folks are like this, but no matter how well things are going, I always want them to be better. I'm thinking about what I can do next term to help my students learn even more. I'm thinking more real-life applications, more fluency, and more opportunity for students to get individualized attention.