I'll add my own story (which is why I posted - never met another one, and I'm curious!). My first gig was plain old ESL in China. I had 50 students and all of them were older than me and doctors, so first I had to get over the fear of public speaking - that took a couple weeks, but now I can speak in front of crowds of any size without panicking. Problem #2 was names. Especially roll call -- even after I explained in Chinese that I had a stutter, some antsy cardiologist in the back would always chuckle when I stuttered on someone's name. Tested my patience. Ended up tagging "Mr." or "Ms." in front of names where I was about to stutter - students thought it was cute. Win. The most pervasive problem is saying words to model pronunciation, or rather, pronouncing a word they show me. Repetition is easy, saying it first is hard, and I don't want them to copy a distorted pronunciation. I usually try easy onset, but if that fails, I grin evilly, turn around and write the word on the board, and pick on a student with decent pronunciation to give it a shot. Then I either defer to that student (if it's basically perfect) as "the teacher," or I repeat it myself. I think most of us say a word WAY easier right after it's been said by someone else. Plus, it also successfully models peer tutoring as an auxiliary way to learn...