final blog

I cannot believe that this is my final blog! I want to take this time to reflect upon my experience in my Digital Literacies class and to take pride in how far I have come in feeling more confident navigating the digital world. I jumped into this class literally having zero idea of what to expect and honestly took the class because it fit in my schedule.

When I realized the class entailed exploring and engaging in the digital world in a very interactive manner, I became anxious and unsure because the thought of having a digital identify beyond Facebook was quite intimidating to me. I always felt like others had more profound things to say, and felt quite vulnerable putting myself out there in the digital space.

This class was very insightful because it enabled me to better understand how to interact in the digital world in a positive way. I appreciate the many opportunities to communicate and work in the digital space that the class has encouraged us to capitalize on. I loved how we were all supportive of each other and gained momentum and confidence together. This really helped me to alleviate my anxiety and to feel more comfortable in the digital world.

Most importantly, this class has helped me realize that, despite my initial assumptions, I do have a voice that is powerful in the digital world. In fact, everyone has something to say and a niche that they can find where they can engage in dynamic and powerful discourse with people and bounce ideas off of each other. I loved that we were encouraged to join a professional community because it enabled me to see that many people are excited and willing to have conversations regarding key issues in my TESOL field. I felt that I had a lot to contribute and a lot to learn, and this was a huge boost to my digital identity confidence. This class has been infinitely meaningful because it instilled in me a deep philosophy that everyone has a place in the digital world and can both learn from and impact others when they discover a digital space that resonates with them. I aspire to apply this realization to my future classrooms because I want to empower my students in digital spaces in the same manner that I was empowered in this class. There is such a world of opportunity to develop one’s identity in the digital world to enrich their lives and create meaningful connections, and I cannot wait to take my new-found enthusiasm for that and share it with my future students.

thankful

I would like to dedicate this blog to the professors I was lucky enough to have during my graduate studies at Penn. Going into graduate school I had no idea what to expect, or how it would differ from undergrad. I quickly discovered that my Penn experience would be very unique from my undergraduate experience because of the manner in which each of my professors empowered us to critically engage in the material in a way that resonated with our own personal passions and professional goals.

During undergrad, I found it ironic that many of my professors in my elementary education major often lectured us as we passively took in information. This was ironic because they espoused student-centered classrooms and students taking agency over their own learning. I always found it odd that the curriculum that supported these philosophies was designed in a way that hindered us from self exploration and student-centered learning.

Coming to graduate school was a totally different experience because the professors valued and took advantage of our unique backgrounds and opinions, and enabled us to take an active role in our learning. I feel so grateful that each of my professors empowered us to seek learning and acted as facilitators to guide and inspire the knowledge seeking process. This was a meaningful experience because my peers and I felt respected for our prior experiences and felt that we could each provide knowledge and work together to critically engage in material and seek  inquiry.

Even my “elective” classes, which were less directly tied to my TESOL major, were profoundly useful for me. These professors made an effort to tailor the classes to fit the needs of the individual learners in the classroom. I was so impressed with my teachers in these classes because they approached their classes of students from diverse majors in a manner that enabled them to get to know our individual passions, to help us capitalize on knowledge that was best suited for our interests and professional goals. 

My Penn professors were so helpful because they not only provided me with abundant theory and teaching pedagogies, but they also served as role models for the type of teacher I will strive to become. The ways in which my professors instilled in us a deep passion for learning and for us to take autonomy over our learning inspired me to strive to do the same in my own teaching context. Out of all of the valuable lessons I was taught and readings I was provided, I can honestly say the part of Penn that was most impactful for me was my deeply passionate and inspiriting professors. I want to thank them for serving as models of what I hope to become!

Reflecting on my TESOL Internship

I cannot believe my field placement is coming to a close! I have had a very rewarding semester working with ESL kindergarteners in Chinatown. My TESOL class that supported my internship enabled me to reflect upon and critically examine my teaching with the consideration of pedagogy and theory in the TESOL field. I came into the semester very intimidated by the class because I knew that we had to complete a huge paper that focused around three areas that we wanted to explore and improve upon in the field. Despite initially feeling overwhelmed by this daunting task, supporting my internship experience with a plethora of pertinent research and theory in the TESOL field has been infinitely meaningful in my quest for professional development throughout this teaching experience. Through the insights and findings I extensively reviewed, I endeavored to better my teaching practice for the specific students I taught. I chose to frame my efforts to better serving my young Chinese students around three themes that resonate with my teaching context. Because I taught this same population of students last semester, I was very familiar with their needs; both needs that I felt I accommodated last semester and needs that I finished the semester feeling I could have more deeply supported. Consequently, I created my three themes based on aspects of my teaching I yearned to improve from last semester.  To begin this semester, I dove into research to better enable me to dedicate my lessons to helping my students flourish in their public schools in both academic and social realms.

These themes are: 1. How can I create a multicultural classroom that reflects students’ cultures and prior experiences to boost their confidence and foster positive self-identities? 2. How can I tailor my lessons to accommodate my older, advanced student and my younger, lower-level student to ensure that I support their diverse needs. 3. How can I create effective classroom management that fosters student self-exploration but maintains control and keeps my young learners on-task and engaged? 

I used this semester to explore each of these themes from pedagogical, linguistic, and sociolinguistic frames of reference in order to gain a broad perspective of how these themes influenced my teaching goals. I am infinitely grateful for this opportunity to critically examine my teaching practice during this experience because teaching young students reflects my aspiration to teach a similar population in the future. My goal for my students this semester was to create and implement lessons that were best tailored to the diverse needs of young learners in an ESL context. My efforts to explore and implement successful methods to accommodate the diverse needs of young ESL learners through the lens of my three themes enabled me to set a strong foundation for ways I can most effectively support the needs of young learners in the future. 

A Rewarding Spring Break

Over spring break I had the privilege to travel to Korea and volunteer teach North Korean defectors. This experience was so powerful because it was life changing to witness students who so deeply want to learn in a free land. These students have overcome countless hardships and oppression to escape North Korea in search for a better life in South Korea where they can now pursue knowledge. Their stories are totally heart-wrenching and moving. For example, one of my students escaped from North Korea into China, where he lived in constant fear of being sent back to North Korea where he would surely be put into a work camp or worse. He was finally able to escape china with the help of a missionary, and had to walk and bus all the way to Thailand, where there was a South Korean embassy that enabled him to defect into South Korea. This particular student is sixteen years old. He is so grateful to be in South Korea because he is free to learn and follow his dreams. This is just one of the many powerful stories I learned while volunteering.

What is so inspirational about these students is these students’ love for life an their deep appreciation for learning. This really reaffirmed that my career choice as a teacher will be the most rewarding career imaginable. These students have a deep respect for teachers and realize how precious they are because they were withheld from them for many years in North Korea. Realizing the profound impact I had upon these students by teaching them English for the week was so incredibly rewarding and powerful.

This experience has inspired me to commit myself to a lifetime of volunteering with refugee students around the world. I plan to teach in many different countries throughout my career, and I will seek out and teach refugees along the way. I want to help these students who have come so far to realize their dreams and live the lives they envision and deserve.

When I was a student, I took my teachers for granted because they were a consistent part of my everyday life. These students have offered a refreshing new perspective and have reminded me that having a teacher is a gift and it should be deeply valued and treasured. As I pursue careers in international schools, I want to share with my students stories of refugees like my North Korean students, to help them see what a gift being able to learn freely is, and to remember to never take their opportunities for granted. In this way, my students that I taught this spring break and more like them will become powerful teachers. I hope to share their message with my other students to change lives as much as these amazing North Koreans have changed mine.

What EFL classrooms in the states can learn from the Korean private school model

            My teaching experience in Korea entailed me having a Korean partner teacher. Together, she and I had ten classes, and we each saw five of our classes per day. The next day we would switch. I would begin by teaching a topic in English, and the following day she would teach the same topic, but predominantly in Korean. This way, the students were exposed to the concept through English, and then the following day they could discuss the topic in greater detail using Korean for support.

            This unique teaching context was not only creative, but highly effective! Our students were able to first totally immerse themselves in English while learning a new concept and then later were able to use Korean to practice and work out the kinks.  This framework was not only beneficial for my students, but it was also a really awesome professional development experience too!  I have heard that teaching is considered an “egg carton” profession, because we are so isolated in our practice. Having a partner teacher was eye-opening because we were able to collaborate and give one another feedback. This was a truly unique experience because I had the opportunity to break away from the sense of isolation experienced by teachers, and learned so much from my partner teacher in the process.

            My experience in the TESOL program has been extremely valuable and I have learned so much. The only aspect of the program I would call to question is based around my aforementioned experience in Korea. My program is comprised of predominantly Chinese students, and I notice that our professors push for a “Western” teaching model. I definitely see the value in a student-centered, task-based teaching approach, but I do feel that this push has left some valuable methods in the dark. In the program’s drive to emphasize “Western” methods and move away from teacher-centered classrooms that they so strongly associate with “non-western” culture, I feel that the program has neglected some really valuable teaching approaches.

            When I think about foreign language in the United States and compare it to foreign language acquisition abroad, I often ponder how students in other countries seem to master English and our students are still struggling to string sentences together after taking Spanish for 8 years. I realize that part of this is that English is a language of power and students are therefore highly motivated to learn. I am not saying that I am pro a teacher-centered learning environment. But I am saying that I think that education that takes place in foreign countries may have a lot more to offer than what we automatically assume here in the “west.” For this reason, I think that it is worthwhile to open to some of the teaching models that have proven successful in other countries, such as my co-teacher experience in Korea. Instead of being quick to discard ideas that came from elsewhere, maybe we could benefit from some oftentimes, in my opinion, revolutionary methods.