How to Become a Better Teacher: What I Learned From Being a Language Student

Every language teacher should take a class where they struggle. Not where they’re comfortable. Where they feel dumb, exposed, and behind. After 10 years away from French, I signed up for two weeks of intensive classes. I experienced placement test shame, anxiety attacks, AI bans, and the uncomfortable truth about my own teaching methods. Here’s what the teacher-student perspective taught me about EdTech, empathy, and what we can’t see from behind our desks.

This is a standalone summary of key lessons. For the full emotional journey, read Week 1 and Week 2.

Why I Did This

I teach English at a college in Berlin. I tell my students daily that mistakes are part of learning, that there’s no “right” or “wrong” in language acquisition, that processing time matters.

Then I sat in a French classroom for the first time in a decade.

And I couldn’t follow my own advice.

I was sweating before the placement test. I felt shame when I couldn’t find words. I panicked when called on without prep time. I hid behind confident teammates during group work. I used AI when it was forbidden, not to cheat, but to survive.

Every single thing I tell my students to embrace, I struggled to practice myself.

The gap between what we know as teachers and what we feel as students is where these lessons live.

The Big Lessons

1. The Issue with Time

Every day, I ran out of time. Every activity, I needed more time. Every task, I left unfinished.

I know why this happens from the teacher side: curriculum to cover, schedules to keep, other students ready to move on.

But here’s what it feels like as a student: You don’t matter enough to wait for.

When I had the right answer but couldn’t produce it fast enough? The class moved on.

When I was mid-sentence and time was called? The class moved on.

When I said “I need more time” and my neighbor was patient but the clock wasn’t? The class moved on.

The teacher said activities would take “10-15 minutes.” Which is it? Those 5 minutes mattered desperately when I was struggling to remember the subjonctif.

Possible Changes:

- Build in buffer time. Not sometimes. Always.

- Give specific time limits, not ranges

- When a student says “I’m not finished,” believe they need more time, not that they’re slow

- Keep using self-pacing (more on that to come).

- Build in “finish at home” options without penalty for students who need them (and want it?)

2. “Easy” Is a Weapon We Don’t Mean to Use

My teacher used “facile” and “difficile” to describe activity options. The “easy” one was far from easy.

When you tell students something is easy and they struggle with it, they don’t blame the task. They blame themselves.

I’d already removed “easy” from my instructions, but experiencing it from the student side showed me why it matters so much. The shame of struggling with “easy” work is a special kind of terrible.

Possible Changes:

- Never use “easy,” “simple,” “basic,” or maybe even “quick” to describe tasks

- Replace with neutral descriptors: “shorter,” “with more support,” “guided”

- When students struggle with something I expected to be straightforward, I’ll examine my expectations, not their abilities

3. AI Bans?

My Week 2 teacher said: “ChatGPT and Google Translate are FORBIDDEN.”

I used Perplexity anyway.

Not to cheat on homework. To understand the homework in the first place. The dictionaries were useless…literally defining words using the same word. When I asked AI to explain concepts in simple French, suddenly I could access the material.

I consider myself a seasoned AI user. The ban didn’t stop me from using AI. It doesn’t stop students either, it just means they can’t ask for help using it wisely.

I witnessed how struggling students use AI to survive long enough to start learning.

Possible Changes:

- Stop blanket bans on EdTech tools

- Teach strategic AI use: “Help me understand” vs. “Give me the answer”

- Create assignments where AI is an explicit scaffold with guidelines for use

- Acknowledge that students WILL use these tools. Our job is teaching them how to use them well.

4. Group Work Can Be a Hiding Place

Six students in one group. One dominant voice. Five silent spectators.

I tried to participate. Got shut down. Didn’t have enough words to defend my ideas. Continued working quietly and independently.

In smaller groups earlier in the week, I’d contributed. In groups of six? I disappeared.

It’s so easy to hide in a large group. For students who are struggling or shy, it’s also so tempting.

Possible Changes:

- Really think of the task and what group size would work best.

- Rethink how I form groups. Random isn’t always best

- Check in with quiet students individually, not just group-wide

- Consider assigning roles with concrete ways for students to contribute

5. Public Correction Can Feel Like Public Shaming

A student said “Je suis d’accord” (I agree).

Teacher’s response: “Je suis d’accord? Come on! That is A1 level. This is B2. You can’t just say that you agree. That is not the right level.”

Joking but not really.

I understood the intent: push students to use more complex language. But invoking level hierarchies publicly doesn’t feel like encouragement. It feels like shame. Same goes for correcting every single mistake as it is being produced. Kills the flow.

Possible Changes:

- Encourage growth without level comparisons: “Can you expand on that?” not “That’s too basic”

- Limit corrections during fluency activities, maybe note them for later, don’t interrupt flow

- Don’t use language levels as value judgments in front of students

6. Some “Communicative” Activities Are Cognitive Torture

The activity that nearly gave me an anxiety attack looked simple on paper:

- See quotes on screen

- Agree or disagree

- Justify using sentence stems with correct verb mood (indicative/subjunctive/infinitive)

- Everyone must speak

In practice:

- Quotes kept scrolling (can’t read fast enough)

- Font was hard to read, images covered words

- Had to form an opinion quickly

- Remember grammar rules

- Track which sentence stems were already used (no repeating!)

- Perform publicly with zero prep time

My throat was tight. My face was hot. I was minutes from walking out.

As a teacher, I’d designed similar activities thinking they were “communicative” and “engaging.”

From the student side? It might have felt like public interrogation with impossible cognitive demands.

Possible Changes:

- Give prep time before public speaking. Real time, not 30 seconds. I REALLY like the Harvard Thinking Routine called “Think, Pair, Share.”

- Reduce cognitive load: don’t combine opinion-forming + complex grammar + time pressure + public performance

- Make participation optional when anxiety is high

- Check in with MY body when designing activities—if imagining it makes my throat tight, it will do the same to struggling students

7. Students Have Right Answers Trapped Inside

I understood everything. I could answer most questions correctly. But I couldn’t produce language fast enough. The right answer was trapped inside me, unable to get out.

I watched more confident students give wrong answers fluently while I sat silently with correct ones I couldn’t articulate.

Then: a neighbor with better French told me my answer was wrong. I was fairly confident I was right, but crossed it out anyway. I can’t be correct. She speaks better French. I HAVE TO BE WRONG.

I was correct.

This happened twice.

Possible Changes:

- Recognize that silence ≠ not knowing

- Give multiple ways to demonstrate knowledge (written, verbal, gesture, drawing)

- Build students’ trust in their own knowledge, especially around more confident peers

- Extend wait time even when it feels uncomfortable

The Meta-Lesson: Empathy Lives in Struggle

I can read research about wait time, cognitive load, and anxiety. I can attend workshops about differentiation and EdTech integration. I can design “student-centered” lessons.

But until I sat in that classroom, sweating through a placement test, hiding in group work, fighting tears during a speaking activity, sneaking AI to understand homework, I didn’t really understand. Or rather, I had forgotten.

Every language teacher should regularly be a struggling student. Not in your strongest language. Not in a language where you’re comfortable. In one where you feel behind, exposed, and dumb.

Because that’s where empathy lives. Growth. Understanding.

What I’m Bringing Back to My Classroom

More than specific techniques, I’m bringing back something I’d lost: the visceral memory of what it feels like to struggle.

Next time a student says “I need more time,” I’ll remember my own panic as the clock ran out.

Next time a student hides in group work, I’ll remember sitting silently while a dominant voice took over.

Next time a student uses AI for homework, I’ll remember how Perplexity was my lifeline (even if it sounds dramatic) when dictionaries failed. More on this some other time. AI requires a few posts.

That’s the real lesson: Not just what to change, but why it matters.

Your Turn

If you teach languages, I challenge you: Take a class where you struggle.

Not a fun hobby class. Not a language you already speak well. A real class where you feel behind, where you might embarrass yourself, where you have to ask for help.

Then come back to your classroom and notice:

∙ How you give instructions

∙ How much time you allow

∙ How you respond when students say “I don’t understand”

∙ Whether your “communicative” activities might actually be anxiety-inducing

∙ What your EdTech policies really communicate

It will absolutely change and even challenge how you teach. It will allow you to see your teaching from the side that matters most, the side that’s trying to learn.

And yes, I already signed up for another course.

Because apparently, I’m a glutton for punishment. Or growth. Probably both.

Want the full emotional journey? Read about Week 1: The placement test panic, AI lifelines, and running out of time and Week 2: Anxiety attacks, AI bans, and test design from the student side.