you guys’ ideas are really brilliant. As an Asian guy whose quasi-mother-tongue is English, I started to teach EFL students when I was very young, sometimes even younger than my students. (I majored in linguistics to gain the edge in teaching.) Back then I didn’t feel uncomfortable with students partly because our age difference wasn’t considerable. That is, we had a lot in common, which facilitated teaching and learning processes and required fewer pedagogic efforts. As I grew older yet the age ranges of my students didn’t change, the generation gap became increasingly noticeable, hence my ongoing qualms about my job performance and the weakened sense of achievement. More often than not, students’ parents are headaches, too. Now I guess I’d be more comfortable dealing with objects rather than people. I know there’s a lot to map out before taking the initiative, though…

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