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.