I have always been fascinated by and passionate about people. My mom has often told me about a trip we took to the public library when I was three. Instead of listening intently to the librarian’s story as the other kids were doing, I was busy watching another kind of story. I looked around at each child and carefully mimicked his or her posture and facial expressions. Just as the characters on the page captivated the other children, the “characters” at storytime captivated me.
Fifteen years later I enrolled at Earlham College, hoping for an experience that would help me prepare to make my contribution to the world. For as long as I can remember, I’ve known that I wanted to work with people “when I grow up,” but it wasn’t until college that I considered a career in teaching English.
During my first year as an undergrad I took a social psychology seminar called “Power and Privilege.” We talked about topics such as race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, age, and socioeconomic class. About half way through the semester we stumbled upon something that we hadn’t planned to discuss that related to all of these categories of marginalization: language. We began to investigate both the power of language and the languages of privilege. In particular, we explored the use of slang, its relation to these categories, and how unofficial languages are simultaneously powerful and powerless. It was during this course of study that I first began to really think about language deliberately.
I later decided to major in Spanish and Hispanic Studies. At the time, there were approximately 25 million Spanish-speakers in the United States and between 300 and 400 million in the world. In my sociology classes, I’d been learning about language as a vehicle for the expression of ideas and feelings and as an important aspect of social identity, and that communication is facilitated by shared language. I decided to pursue the major because of the amazing possibility of using words, both English and Spanish, to connect with 900 million people.
Another class at Earlham caused me to think even more about language and become interested in teaching English to speakers of other languages. I began volunteering at Amigos, a community-based English as a Second Language program, to fulfill a service-learning requirement for “Spanish Conversation and Composition”. I enjoyed it so much that I kept volunteering after the semester was over. I taught one-on-one English lessons to Mexican immigrants through this program for two years. During my third year with Amigos and my last year at Earlham, I served as volunteer coordinator for the program. In this capacity I recruited and trained volunteer tutors, assessed students’ language proficiency and paired them with tutors, created and distributed curricula and materials to tutors, and planned and facilitated tutor support and training events.
I gained a lot of practical teaching experience while working at Amigos, but felt I needed to learn more about second language acquisition, materials development, and methods of teaching English in order to be the most effective teacher that I could be. I decided to earn a master’s degree to better prepare myself to do this important work. Three and a half years into my two-year program (give me a break – I work full time too!), I’m in my final semester.
After I graduate, I’m interested in continuing to work at the intensive English program where I’m completing my practicum, teaching abroad, or getting back in to teaching “survival English” to adult immigrants. Though I’m not as keen at the moment, I’ve toyed with the idea of getting a PhD. It seems to me that there is a pretty sizable gap between ESL research and pedagogy. I would love to contribute to this body of knowledge by conducting research on student learning and on the conditions that support (and inhibit) quantifiable learning gains. I’m also interested in developing materials and curricula based on research-validated methods.
One thing at a time though. I’ll be teaching for the first hour of class on Tuesday, which means it’s time to lesson plan!
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