If you don’t make mistakes you will never get it right

During the registration process for Cohort 21 we were asked the following question: If you were a T-Shirt, what would it say?.  I knew my answer straight away, a statement that I repeat very often to all my students and to myself.

“If you don’t make mistakes you will never get it right”

I teach Spanish to high school students and have also been confronted with the

challenge of learning a new language, when I decided to move to Germany without speaking the language.

I decided to buy some books and learn some German, but after three weeks of reading and answering grammar questions, I got bored and decided to take a new approach. I went to the bakery and tried to order some bread. The woman behind the counter was a really patience person and helped me construct my sentence. That was the beginning, from that moment on I decided I was going to speak only in German even if I was making many mistakes and that only by learning from my mistakes my German will improve, and it did.

This is my message to all my students at the beginning of the year, try, make mistakes and don’t be afraid to make them, only if you make mistakes and learn from them you will learn.

I had forgotten what my shirt said, I  finished submitting my application last May  and when I asked Ruth what my answer was I remembered the reason why I chose that statement.

I will have my statement present during all of  the Cohort 21 journey, and will  step out of my comfort zone, writing is one of them, but I will keep trying because “if you don’t make mistakes you will never get it right”

What are you going to do to step out of your comfort zone?
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