I began my Bachelor’s degree at the University of Central
Florida and began taking TESOL classes as a part of my elementary education
program. I quickly fell in love with these classes and knew that I had a
passion for working with students who speak English as a second language. I
began my career teaching first grade in a rural school district with a large
migrant population. All of my classes from UCF had paid off and I was able to
use everything that I learned with my students.
As I am going into my 6th year of teaching I am
excited to continue to work as an inclusion classroom for our ESL students. The
journey I go through with my students is different for each of them as they
bring different experiences with them. One thing I try to foster in my
classroom is a sense of community. While we all are different, on the inside we
are very similar. We all want to be heard, included, and loved. I feel that
this environment has helped my quietest of students find their voice in our
classroom.
I am currently enrolled in a graduate course called Computer
Assisted Language Learners. We are using Google Alerts https://www.google.com/alerts
to tag items related to TESOL and Technology. Each week we will reflect on our
readings with a blog post about the article and what we have learned. I was
nervous to get started because I only had one Google Alert! When I went to my
email to read what had been sent I was delightfully surprised.
KJ Kaiser is a professor at Webster University and recently
spoke in Uruguay at the LATU Education and Technology. While the article I
found was short it led me to look more into KJ Kaiser and his role in TESOL.
The LATU website was exciting and very eye opening and had wonderful resources.
I decided to Google KJ Kaiser so I could learn more about his work. I found his
blog and several videos including the most recent one of him speaking in
Uruguay. Then something happened…
I started watching the video and realized that it was not in
English. I quickly tried to see if a translation was available for me to read
and there was nothing. I tried watching some of it to see if maybe parts of it
were in English and none of it was. Sitting along hearing a group of others
talk in another language and wishing I understood was an overwhelming feeling.
Not one I was expecting to feel as I began my research. My mind quickly went to
a former student of mine. It made me wonder how he sat in my classroom day
after day doing his very best to absorb this new world around him all while
smiling and giving each day his best. I felt guilty, privileged, and a little
ashamed. I do not think I completely understood how overwhelming it all can be.
While searching about KJ Kaiser I did learn some great strategies for the
classroom, but what stood out to me most was thinking about that student.
What an incredible takeaway from an assignment! As teachers, I believe we often forget that our children are not viewing the world from the same lens we did. ESL students view the English speaking world differently than students growing up in an upper class family that fluently speaks English. In my case of teaching, my students all come from poverty so they view the world differently than I ever did at the age of 7 and 8. I think your point was very thought provoking and made me stop and redirect my thoughts, especially going into the last week of school.
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