Authenticity

I work with a lot of non-English speakers. Most of the children who come to us initially don't speak any English and one of my main roles as teacher in the environment is to be the main language material. I am also acutely aware of how important developing the language of our school environment is to the new children's expression and socialization. It is a top priority at the beginning of the year.

However, what I feel starts to happen is that in speaking back in complete sentences and putting a lot of emphasis on what I am saying I feel like I lose some of the naturalness to my speaking. I lose myself in proper language modeling. It is amazing how even after all this time, there are moments where I think I'm not really speaking in my voice, but rather using a "teacher voice" instead of my own.

To help with this, I've been keeping the idea of authenticity in my mind lately.  I touch base with not just the words, but my expression and posture. When I think about staying authentic as I talk to the children I relax. Authenticity has to do with ease somehow, opposite of reciting from memory, putting things into my very own words.

Trying to convey to the children through just language, that it's important to not just say the right words, but be truly ourselves through them.