Panic affecting memory

[Blueberry]

I'm teaching a young American woman the local language of my country. She's a complete beginner and she likes learning with me. There's also only her, not a whole group. I like teaching her too. But for some reason I panic internally and my brain goes on strike about grammatical gender or sometimes even verb endings. Words where I wouldn't think twice in day-to-day usage whether I'm using them correctly - when I'm teaching I have these brain lapses. I'm talking very basic language usage too. I know this stuff! 

I suppose it's connected to all the criticism and making fun of that I experienced at the hands of FOO since that was particularly about my verbal expression and intellectual intelligence.

Thanks FOO, not. A few years ago when thousand of refugees moved to my country, all sorts of institutions were desperate for teachers of the local language. I looked into it but noticed the panic setting in and gave up on the idea. Again, thanks FOO. Not.

[Anjulie]

I can relate to that "I panic internally and my brain goes on strike" very well. My FOO left me with that, too. It is so unfair! I'm getting really angry when I think of it. Also I am glad that I am not alone having been treated like that.

[Kizzie]

I can really relate as well BB, I am much more comfortable writing than being F2F although at one time that was even really difficult.  I just felt like I couldn't let any of me out b/c I would be criticized and demeaned.  It's a devastating feeling, like your spirit is being crushed and you're shrinking down into a puddle on the floor.  No wonder we avoid feeling that way!      for younger you and    for younger me too.  No child should ever be made to feel that way and it happened to us over and over and over again. 

Would it help to think about what the person you are teaching is like? Is she someone who would criticize or judge you? You mentioned she likes learning with you so maybe you're nervous of letting your guard down, but perhaps she is just a lovely person you could take a risk with and be a little less vigilant? It just may be that allowing yourself to enjoy teaching her w/o shutting down will work out okay in the end.

[sanmagic7]

  blueberry.  fingers crossed that you're able to work thru this and know that she's not the same as foo.  Poo on Foo!  i'm thankful they're not the boss of you anymore.  love you

[Oscen]

Hi Blueberry, that's so fantastic that you're helping someone else learn the language.
It sounds like you are a natural at teaching.

It sucks that your FOO have left you with so much doubt in yourself.
It seems like this teaching opportunity has come about to help you see how capable you are, and to build confidence in yourself, step by step.

I teach English as a second language, though I myself don't speak a second language, and I've often felt unconfident in myself for one reason or another.
If you want, I can PM you a few teaching tricks? Let me know if that would help.

When teaching, it's quite normal to forget the "simple" things about the language in the moment.
Try not to put pressure on yourself to have all the answers, or to explain everything in a way the student understands.
It will improve to a certain extent with experience, but honestly, you'd be surprised how irrelevant it actually is to their learning.
Exposure and repetition do more than explanations and rules.

As for panicking in the moment, I've found it helps to remember why you are doing what you are doing - for your student(s).
This is not a criticism; I just know from personal experience that if you get self-focused, you'll start spiralling downwards. Go external and you will feel more positively.

Imagine your student communicating in the situations she needs to - buying coffee at the coffeeshop, doing her grocery shopping, navigating the town, making friends with a native speaker, asking for train times, watching local TV, listening to announcements, applying for a job, filling in an official form; whatever her needs are.
Everything she learns is helping her get a little bit better in all these situations.

That means your lessons are helping her expand her options and improve her quality of life.  That's fantastic!
As her teacher, you're allowed to take joy from her improvement and achievements, too.

It's not that the other stuff (gender, tense, conjugation, etc) is unimportant - but it is much, much less important than communication and navigating daily life.
Communication comes first, accuracy comes last. This is true of all language learning.

Well done in your teaching and I hope this helps.

[Blueberry]

Would it help to think about what the person you are teaching is like? Is she someone who would criticize or judge you? You mentioned she likes learning with you so maybe you're nervous of letting your guard down, but perhaps she is just a lovely person you could take a risk with and be a little less vigilant? It just may be that allowing yourself to enjoy teaching her w/o shutting down will work out okay in the end.

It has got quite a bit better over the weeks. She doesn't criticise or judge. In fact she thanks me profusely at the end of each session and tells me how much she's learning or how much I'm helping her. So I guess I'm being more relaxed and less vigilant and that's improving my mental state during teaching. Interesting how that works.

You're right, no child should be demeaned and overly-criticised the way we were. My image as a late teen or young adult was that I was completely saturated with criticism. Like a cloth that couldn't absorb any more water, I couldn't handle any more of that FOO criticism. Definitely  and compassion to our younger selves.

[Blueberry]

When teaching, it's quite normal to forget the "simple" things about the language in the moment.

I didn't know that! That's interesting as well as helpful to know.

It wasn't clear from my post but actually I've been teaching ESL for quite a while now. It's just new for me to be teaching the language of my country of residence. I teach one-on-one only now and I'm actually pretty competent. For instance  I teach / have taught some students who are verging on mental disability, maybe you'd say "with learning difficulties" in English. They definitely need different explanations to other students and the teaching material being broken down into very very small steps. One student like this still comes even though she has finished school already. I notice that her ability with her native language is improving the more she works with English. Once when I was in inpatient treatment for about 3 months and was in a really bad state beforehand - I couldn't teach at all - I told her parents, they should maybe look for somebody else, but she refused to even consider going to a new teacher. I know that all speaks for my teaching ability and probably for some form of compassion towards somebody easily discriminated against on account of having lower IQ. 

When teaching in general, there are certain things I simply cannot remember and always have to look up and explain to students based on a grammar book e.g. when to use 'will' future and 'going to' future, but I'm OK with that. My native speaker status is way more important, as well as my ability to teach anybody who actually wants to learn irrespective of what type of school they went to or how incompetent and "dumb" their teachers consider or considered them to be

Putting pressure on myself when dealing with language or any intellectual activity (or even worse the combination) is a vestige of what I like to call intellectual abuse. That may not officially exist, but I that's what I say FOO did to me, among other things.