When I was assigned a position as a TA in sociology at York last year, it was a challenging "experiment" because it marked several "firsts" for me. The assignment came during my first visit to North America. At that time, even the simplest daily facts of life were overwhelming to me and I had to learn literally everything. It also marked the first time that I had to lecture in English to mostly native speakers. Thankfully it was not my first time teaching because I had already been a TA in Istanbul, Turkey, where I was born and raised. It was also not my first exposure to speaking English because I had been learning it in Turkey since I was thirteen years old. I really enjoyed learning the language and I realized that it was a great way to get to know a different culture and to connect it to my own.

Until I decided to write this article, I had not really thought about why and how my background has impacted my perception of teaching. The reason for this was probably because I preferred to ignore the challenges and instead just let myself adjust to my new life in Canada. I'm not sure exactly how being Turkish has affected my teaching at York. Instead, I think my personal experience of meeting people from other nationalities has greatly affected my teaching. I traveled a lot during my undergrad years; I volunteered in several international work camps and attended international festivals. Not only did this gave me a chance to practice my English, but more importantly, I think those experiences also gave me self-confidence and comfort with being with multicultural groups of young people such as the ones I taught at York. The organizers of the festivals always began the program with warm-up activities and I've adopted some of these activities for use in my own teaching for the first day of class. Those experiences were very important to me and I recommend participation in similar types of programs to my undergrad students who want to choose teaching as a career.

There are no teachers or professors in my family so I had to learn everything about teaching for myself from scratch. I did this by choosing my favorite teachers as role models and talking to them as well as observing them as they taught. While teaching at York, I found myself looking back and trying to remember the details of the teaching practices of my foreign professors at the university in Turkey and their efforts at communicating with us. Being an international TA at York, gave me the opportunity to appreciate their challenges while teaching in Turkey.

One of the key points that I have learned from my past teachers is to be cheerful and attentive from the moment I step into the class. This helps to create a more positive and motivating atmosphere for the students. I am also always aware of body language. That's not something that was taught to me, its just part of my personality and my culture. I know that the way I use my eyes and hands for example, can help to convey my intentions as a teacher especially since I am not a native speaker. I also try to use universal human experiences in the form of anecdotes and jokes that relate to the reading material. By doing this, I remind myself and my students that we all have many things to share as humans regardless of ethnicity, nationality or religion. At York I taught "Families and Social Change" a course which enabled me to establish good dialogue with the students. For example, when we discussed the topic of interracial/cultural families, I made myself a "case study" by using a short documentary film about my husband and I. When I taught English and literature to socially diverse groups in Turkey such as teens from wealthy families or teens from the shantytowns in summer camps I used the same methods with them that I later used with my York class. These experiences taught me invaluable lessons about how to teach students from different backgrounds.

In my teaching experience at York, I consider language skills to be a very important factor. I feel comfortable with English and this is probably reflected in my teaching. It is extremely important for me to try to improve my language skills every day. It help to enhance our explanations of concepts to the students. Although it was very hard for me to follow the popular topics such as those in the media, slang and national or local references, I force myself to learn many things that fall outside my usual scope of interest. As an international TA one has to be realistic and realize that it is impossible to learn everything if you have just moved to Canada, regardless of how motivated you are. My advice to international TAs is to be honest with students. This works well for me because it allows me to accept and even laugh at my mistakes and to overcome my hesitations about using new terms and words. These are experiences that are common when one is in a new country. It is important to remember that students don't expect you to know everything. If you let them know you are new to the country and the culture, they will appreciate your efforts. I hope to remain both a teacher and a learner across cultures, throughout my lifetime.