Reflecting on our essays and Web evaluation test

Thursday we discussed common errors we made with our essays and the test. I learnt that I should never give my own opinion on the topic although I wrote the essay myself. In my essay I also wrote a question as a heading that was a mistake. I got 79% for my essay because of late submission. That was very irrisponsible of me, but I never thought of getting  marks like that. Sometimes we really underestimate ourselves. My English improved although I still get mixed up with the use of verbs. I must really make use of the grammar tool to get rid of the language errors. I motivated some students to practice their computer skills to make it better, but I must really practice my English. My children speak English at home and I guess I don't set an example for them. I am Afrikaans inclined and love it because I can express myself better. I love to read inspirational books and I even write poems for my daughters( In English). Thirty years of teaching  at a Afrikaans medium school really forced me to read, write, reason, and speak less English. I grew up in an Afrikaans environment and as far as I can remember, the little English I heard was in church and a weekly program that my father used to listen to on the radio. I cannot remember the name of the program but I remember at the end of the program  the man said: "If I don't see you through the week, I'll see you through the window! " Gosh, my father scared the daylights out of me. I covered my face with the sheet or blanket during winter and summer because I was so scared that the" man " will look into my window. I stopped doing that when I was in High school because only then I understood the program better . We used to laugh about that, but today I realize what damage it caused because I completely shut down and never listened properly. My parents also chose the books that we read and at times the books were very boring.  They were conservative and at times over protective. In my practice, I prefer to let the pupils "choose" English books during the half hour reading period and they love it. When I arrive at school in the morning, some pupils run up to me and ask me whether they can read to me. They are so proud of themselves and they have so much more confidence to converse in English. We are meeting with five other schools at St Pauls Primary School tomorrow in the hope to establish a "Soul buddy" club at our school. The pupils of the other schools are mainly English , but my pupils are very confident and are very exited to meet with them. My colleagues at school laugh when I say:" My engelse tande het nog nooit uitgekom nie".  To them it is a joke, but to me it is serious because I know I was deprived of something so important. I was requested to serve on various executives during my life but I was always afraid to speak English. I can still recall the first day when we had to introduce ourselves to the ACE class. When I asked wether I could  introduce myself in Afrikaans, there was a roaring, unanimous boo. I felt humiliated in a way.  I will overcome this problem .