Esl - Blog Posts
Big respect to the people who learned English as either a 1st or 2nd language.
Eleventh Classroom...
It’s been a year…
Still AroAce…
Still a teacher…
Still barely sane…
I went from being a ‘traveling ESL teacher’ to a paraprofessional at a Montessori school. I am not impressed. Oh sure, Montessori is a wonderful learning philosophy but it is not for everyone. It is certainly not for a teacher with ADHD that struggles with hyperfocus. The individualized lessons given are often at the cost of classroom management or vice versa.
The parents who send their kids to a Montessori school do so in lieu of seeking out professional help for their unique or troubled child. I have TWELVE out of twenty-six students who are either obviously ADHD or obviously Autistic to some degree. Two have IEPs and the rest are ‘busy kids’ in their parents’ eyes.
This is a challenge that I have no problem with. I LOVE my students.
BUT I am not thrilled with their parents…
‘I want to focus on this pregnancy’…Yeah, but while you’re doing that you could LAY in bed and work with your son on his letter sounds.
‘My parents are in a motel getting their act together’…AKA, drug addicts.
‘My mom says that this rule is dumb’…Sorry, it’s a SCHOOL rule. No sweets.
The only thing worse than the parents is how this school is run…
The double standards and obvious favoritism is what REALLY pisses me off.
I do my job, I get yelled at by THREE different people.
Someone else DOESN’T do their job and they get praised…wonderful.
Oh yeah, and we have FOUR Montessori teachers out of FORTY.
Hug...?
Hug hug hug hug hug
You’re my favorite teacher
No, no please don’t leave!
Weird Kid...
Strange kid, why like me
I’m a weird, childless spinster
Nobody likes me.
Looking up...
Breakthrough finally
Happiness can be real now
I have a new job.
Certification Pending...
This is such a depressing thing to see when you have studied for what essentially amounts to three months straight.
Sadly, I only have myself to blame considering I let my background check slip. Now I have to get in touch with people to have my work email unlocked.
It has been a long and winding road already…
No one at grad school said anything about additional certification…
The program was geared towards preparing student to teach adults, not kids.
Then again, when I asked the ‘teaching career’ guru if I should get certified in general education or special education…she said ‘no’.
Do yourself a favor, if you are going to specialize in ESL, special education, or any other area…go for additional certification in general education. There are more special education jobs than there are ESL (in my State, anyway) and there is WAY more general education jobs than there are both ESL and special education combined.
Get it while you are still in college!
It will open up three times as many doors for you!
Start in general education, get that experience, then work towards the subject or kinds of students you actually want to teach.
Get your foot in the door!
Life Changing Moments…
In teaching there are sometimes life changing moments…
One such moment for me was when I first got sucked into teaching ESL.
Another such moment was when I sat in on an ESL kindergarten class…
I met my first little autistic student.
He was non-verbal and hated colors and loud noises.
His fixation was a car…but it was also me…oddly enough.
Direct eye contact and then a hug…
His teacher discouraged it… It was my first day there and she did not know me.
But I did not mind the hug…
From then on, every time he saw me, he’d rush over to hug me or show me something he worked on in class…
This is how I decided that my next Master’s degree will be in Special Education, one sweet boy who changed my life…
Ninth Classroom...
I bounced from school-to-school for a while before landing…
I was placed in a pull-out position where I would work with English Language Learners…
They were new to the country and new to the school…
A lot of the students were true beginners unable to associate phoneme to letter…
It was a lot of work, considering I only see them twice a week for half an hour at most…
Hybrid classes…come to school two days…go virtual three…
Except they don’t show up and do no work…
Fortunately, I’m not a ‘real’ teacher yet…
They only get some additional language support from me…completely homework free.
Of if they needed to talk…I was always willing to listen.
The Pandemic is hard on all of us…
Forget your standards and your deadlines…
Let children be children…
Seventh Classroom…
It was mostly in the library at first…
A pull out situation for English Language Learners…
Three and a half weeks were spent on ACCESS testing…
Two weeks were spent in the classroom…
Then BOOM: Pandemic…
There was no reason for me to stay at the Grad House so I left…
Well, I picked up UDairy Ice Cream and Ramen from Kumamoto in Newark, DE…
THEN I left…
So really, my seventh classroom was mostly on Zoom…
I did not end up doing the edTPA…
But I have a lesson, materials, and assessments set up to do so…
Engage and Enjoy!
Being serious about developing an English training program and approaching curriculum building and lesson time with 100% buy in doesn't mean that the lessons are going to be no fun.
Quite the contrary. Coming into Japan, most students have studied a lot of English and have interacted with a lot of vocabulary, but they don't know how to use it because there is a heavy leaning towards passing the school tests. A lot of students have never traveled and they have not discovered how satisfying and fun it can be to actually communicate in another language. We need to engage them. Sometimes stray from the path you blazed if a productive conversation springs, but remember to find teaching points as you go.
make your lessons fun. Add games and discussion activities or do meeting simulations.
involve the students. Find out what they hope for and make a point to accommodate.
Mix it up. Have one class that is totally different. Try to avoid making it routine.
Don't lose sight of your target, the textbook still needs to be used, time needs to be controlled but the students don't need to be aware you are thinking of this.
Make sure the students understand the benefits of the activities you are doing or the goal. Sometimes students appear to be having fun but turn around and complain to their HR department. Sell them on what you are doing.
If we teach them how to have fun and how to communicate while growing their skills, they will gain a more natural motivation and interest in your class. You can't win them all. Some students are forced to take the class by their boss or other persons of influence, but you will win over more than you lose if you keep this in mind.
Broadening experiences
On a personal note, I really feel that I enjoyed a large growth as a language facilitator over the last 5 years. By taking on new experiences and prodding the English language from different angles and opening up to new experiences, we can grow our awareness and become better teachers, coaches and vessels that help to transport our charges through language acquisition.
The 4 and half years I spent as an instructor working from within a Japanese company helped to give me a more practical experience of how English is experienced in an international company. I could find some areas that English training could be useful that I hadn't considered before and how to prepare my students better for international communication or travel. COVID 19 really shifted that whole scene, which I have touched on before, but business travel is still needed.
One of the most unique experiences I took on in that time frame was developing a curriculum for an English Communication School that wanted to operate in a VR environment using Microsoft's ALT Space. Sadly as my contract finished, Microsoft shuttered their venture into the metaverse and when I offered to adapt my plan to a different platform, the company did not seem interested.
We used the MEXT website as a reference and found the target vocabulary and grammar points and developed a fun program for grade 3 students. One idea was using mini stories to illustrate the targets to kids in a fun way. I was able to record the voices for the characters and it was really fun to develop.
The best experience helped me to finally collaborate with my sister on something.
For the program we wanted to use songs, but the staff said that due to copyright issues, it was difficult, could you make songs? Sure! I thought up lyrics in each unit as I made the course plan and after that was done, I set out to think up a tune. With my iPhone, I recorded some sketches that fit the rhythm and the lady in the staff actually had some musical skills so helped fix them so they were more technically sound. They wanted to use an AI singer but I suggested using my sister as the singer as she has some experience with singing. I was quite proud of the results. Unfortunately only about half of my songs were recorded.
The first two songs had a few hits in the first few weeks, but seemed to stop getting interest soon.
Every program needs a hello song. We used a traditional tune but it still came out alright.
Sadly, I thought this last song was the best one but it had only 230 hits. I learned a lot about naming. If I named the song Colour and fruit song, it would have 1000 times more hits.
That was a great, fun experience and I learned a lot about thinking about an entire language training program, even if it was just for 3rd graders.