My TESL Journey

TESL 0100 Unit 10 Reflection For our final reflection we were asked to synthesize and visualize our learning in the form of a Pecha Kucha. The video below includes the ideas that resonated the most with me throughout this ten-week course. Enjoy!

TESL 0100 Unit 9 Reflection As we begin to think about the language classroom that we may be teaching in, we need need to also take a step back and consider what teaching and learning looks like in the twenty-first century. We were asked to think about the skills, tasks and technologies that our students would need to have an understanding of in order to be successful in today's world, and to create an infographic to represent our ideas. Below is the infographic that I created. It includes the skills and strategies that I believe are needed by all students, including language students. In order to succeed in today's ever-changing world, students need to be taught more than just the basic knowledge and skills that were taught in traditional classroom. The four key skills that I have highlighted - communication, collaboration, creativity and critical thinking, often referred to as the four C's, should be an important component to any classroom. In university, the workp...

TESL 0100 Unit 8 Reflection Assessment is a complex topic. In most adult ESL classes nowadays, assessment can take on many different forms. The traditional paper-pencil test is not as common anymore, Of course some types of English proficiency tests do still exist, such as the tests that are needed in order to become a permanent resident or attend a Canadian university. However, in government-funded programs, Portfolio-Based Language Assessment, or PBLA, is the method of assessment. PBLA is a formative assessment, meaning that it helps to "form" the teaching and the learning. It takes place throughout a topic or unit of study and allows both the teacher and student to find out how the student is doing with a topic. Are they "getting it?" Are there some parts that are still confusing or unclear to the student? Does a particular skill need review or reteaching? Through formative assessment, students also reflect on their learning and think about what they can ...

TESL 0100 Unit 7 Reflection In this unit we were focusing on how to build inclusive classrooms and it reminded me of something. During an Inclusive Education course that I took this summer at the U of M I watched a video on Inclusive Pedagogy by Kristine Black-Hawkins. I n this video,  Black-Hawkins shares the key ideas she has been exploring in her research on Inclusive Pedagogy. She outlines what she calls a “fundamental shift in thinking,” in which teachers are moving away from a more traditional approach to inclusion that is individualized, towards a more inclusive pedagogical approach that starts with the class as a whole. In the more  traditional approach a teacher would think of “most” of their class as being “okay” and having to do something “different” for “some” students who have special educational needs. In inclusive pedagogy a teacher starts with everybody; it is a way of approaching teaching and learning that extends what is available to everybody in...

TESL 0100 Unit 7 Reflection   One of the key ideas that stood out for me regarding classroom management was the idea of establishing rapport. One of the most important things a teacher needs to do at the start of a class is to build relationships and rapport with their students. It's okay if you don't get to the curriculum or lesson plan right away; more learning will take place if you, the teacher, have taken the time to get to know your students and allowed your students to get to know each other. Starting a new class with get to know you activities and ice-breakers in which students get to share about themselves and learn about one another will lay the foundation for future classes. Creating a warm, caring atmosphere in which students feel comfortable asking questions, contributing to discussions and taking risks is a key component to classroom management.  Another key idea of classroom management is the need to be flexible. Even though we may have the lesson planne...

TESL 0100 Unit 6 Reflection Ah, lesson planning. This was the focus of Unit 6 of the Fundamentals course and it was jam-packed! We dove head first into all things lesson-plan related: envisioning a lesson, coming up with the goal and language focus of the lesson, planning the sequence of activities and procedures to follow, determining the amount of time each will take, predicting and anticipating any challenges/difficulties our students may have, as well as creating an exit assessment and transfer activity. Starting with the end in mind and doing "backwards planning" is an effective method for creating a lesson plan. A teacher must know why a student is doing each activity; there must be a purpose behind it that will lead them towards the lesson goal. Before even beginning to create a lesson plan a teacher must have a strong understanding of the ultimate goal: what outcome do the students need to demonstrate? The teacher then needs to take a step backwards and come up...

TESL 0100 So I kind of overlooked this assignment, or maybe I was procrastinating it and avoiding it because I am not much of an artist and was not really looking forward to attempting to draw my classroom. :) I tried to do some of the parts in 3D, but other parts are much more basic. It's kind of a mix of both. Attempting to draw a couch was the trickiest part! Anyways, I like to think of my classroom as a community of learners, which is why I used a circular table with me, the teacher (the one with the speech bubble), as part of the circle. When needed, everyone can turn their chairs toward the whiteboard for direct instruction, or to read sentence stems or discussion prompts. I would put our agenda on the board so the students would know what was in store for the day. There would also be a word wall bulletin board with high frequency words and words we had learned in previous lessons. The classroom would have a bookshelf with a wide variety of reading materials and games/...

For the TESL 0100 class I had to create a 10-question quiz on the teaching methods discussed in Chapters 2 & 3 of our text, Teaching by Principles: An Interactive Approach to Language Pedagogy and the Webinar, "A Trip Down the Memory Lane of Methodology." Click on the link below to complete the quiz. Good luck! TESL Methodology Quiz Brown, D. & Lee, H. (2015).  Teaching by principles, An interactive approach to language pedagogy.  (4th ed. revised). Upper Saddle River: Pearson Education. Chia Suan Chong (2012): A Trip Down the Memory Lane of Methodology  Link

TESL 0100 Unit 5 Reflection  I have been working in the field of education for quite a while and have used a wide variety of teaching methods, depending on the context I was working in. I have worked with students from pre-school to adult, and I have worked in public school as well as private institutes. Sometimes the teaching methods were dictated and other times I had more choice in how I conducted my class. For example, in an Intensive Reading class at a middle school in Florida I had to use a scripted text, where I read lines directly from a Teacher's Manual. In contrast, in an Advanced Reading class that I taught at the same school I was able to select a novel of my choice to study with the class and was able to prepare materials that I felt suited the needs of the students.  Over time, as various methodologies have come and gone, there are some teaching practices that have withstood the test of time and have come to be known as "best practice." Many of these...

TESL 0100 Unit 4 Reflection One of the popular ideas about language learning brought up by Lightbrown and Spada (2013) is that "The best predictor of success in second language acquisition is motivation." I think that survival is a huge motivator in learning a second language. When I went to South Korea to teach English I only knew a few basic words and phrases, such as  Hello ,  My name is Sheila,  and  I am Canadian.  The first school that I worked at was a small, private language institute and I was their first and only "native English speaker" teacher. I lived in a small studio apartment by myself, and during the week I had very few interactions with other "native English speakers." I needed to speak Korean to go to the store and buy things, order in restaurants, talk to my landlord, and give directions to taxi drivers. I was surrounded by the language everywhere that I went. I picked up a lot of Korean fairly quickly as it was essential to my su...

TESL 0100 At the private language school that I worked at in South Korea it was a policy that in conversation classes students were to speak “English only!” Since I was not fluent in Korean I was unable to translate directions for an activity or vocabulary words into Korean for the students. As an English teacher in a foreign land I made extensive use of TPR (Total Physical Response): facial expressions, gestures, motions and role-play were used extensively. A lot of information can be communicated in these ways, and it often brings about a great deal of laughter! It also helps to create a more relaxed and comfortable atmosphere. The students also made different faces and used various gestures and motions to get their ideas across to me, and then I was able to tell them the English word or phrase for what they were trying to say. It was a lot of fun and a learning experience for all. I do not believe that "English only" is the route to go in an ESL classroom. I taught i...

TESL 0100 In my school division the acronyms EAL and LAL are used to describe different types of students and these acronyms come from Manitoba Education. EAL Student: English as an Additional Language. English is not their first language. These students have literacy  skills in another language and have had formal schooling experiences. They may or may not require additional support in the classroom. LAL Student: Literacy, Academics and Language. English is not their first language. These students have not had much or possibly any schooling experiences and do not have a foundation of literacy skills. There is an EAL/LAL teacher in my division who works with a small group of secondary LAL students daily for half a day. She teaches them foundations skills in literacy, numeracy and life skills. For the other half of the day most of them attend high school elective classes.   I am also familiar with the acronym TOEFL: Test of English as a Foreign Language. When ...

TESL 0100 Unit 4 Reflection Brown & Lee describe eight principles of second language acquisition (2015, p. 66-87) The principle that stood out the most for me as I worked through Unit 4 was that of Transfer. This principle has come up several times in the coursework of the TESL Certificate program and is a key factor in whether learners acquire and are able to use the language that they learn. Transfer is the idea that if a student is able to make meaningful connections between what they already know and can do to new knowledge and skills, deeper learning will occur. Students will be able to note similarities and differences between ideas and "transfer" previous learning to new situations. As teachers, we want to move our students from surface learning towards deeper learning, and eventually, transfer. In an ESL class, teachers should build on students' background knowledge, as well as their interests, and make connections to students' real lives whenever p...

TESL 0100 Unit 3 Reflection This unit was all about grammar, grammar, grammar! It was definitely a lot of information to process. One of the activities we completed was to go through Bolitho and Tomlinson's Common Areas of Difficulty from Discover English  to determine what areas of the English language we might need to brush up on. It was overwhelming!  I believe I have a great deal of knowledge and expertise of the English language as I have been working in the field of literacy in one way or another for close to twenty years. I do know a lot about grammar, tenses, and many of the other language features explained in the text and have taught some of them at one time or another. However, I was definitely confounded by some of the information that I read and by some of the questions presented! I can see that there are some areas I need to review and work on in order to be an effective ESL teacher.  In an ESL class, I don't think we as teachers would ever go into...

TESL 0100 Unit 2 Reflection Some of the key ideas that stood out for me in Unit 2 were Andragogy and Needs Assessments. Andragogy describes the principles of adult learning or adult education. Malcolm Knowles (1997) identified several characteristics about adult learners that focus on the process of learning. Knowles stated that adults need to know why they are learning something, they need to learn by doing, and their learning needs to be relevant to their daily lives. Being involved in the planning and evaluation of their learning is also key. Adults take ownership of their learning and thrive on task-based, problem-solving activities. I recently took a course which focused on differentiated professional development and Professional Learning Communities (PLCs) for teachers. Malcolm Knowles’ idea of andragogy was one of the learning theories that we discussed. The idea of differentiated job-embedded professional development is becoming more common in education and leads to ...

TESL 0100 Lea rner Personas Group Assignment (Sheila and Hayley) Our document includes the personas we have created. This assignment helped us understand the importance of incorporating the strengths and interests of students into learning activities. We learned that there are ways to incorporate students with different skill sets. In addition, using students' goals as classroom objectives helps to target the activities for specific purposes rather than just having a general curriculum that won't necessarily help students to achieve their goals. We also learned that there are a lot of cultural and language characteristics to consider when planning for a multicultural class or an ESL class. Our document includes the personas we have created. This assignment helped us understand the importance of incorporating the strengths and interests of students into learning activities. We learned that there are ways to incorporate students with different skill sets. In addition,...

TESL 0100 Needs Assessments After quite a bit of searching I came across a great resource that describes a variety of needs assessments. It is from the Center for Applied Linguistics and is actually a trainer's guide titled,  Assessing Learner Needs in the Adult ESL Classroom.  On pages 40-42 of the document there is a Classroom Needs Assessment Tools Chart that outlines 7 different types of needs assessments that can be used in an adult ESL classroom, however many could be modified for different age levels. For each needs assessment there is a description, the purpose and an explanation of how it can be analyzed.  One that I liked is Topic Selection. It could be done in a couple of different ways. One way is similar to the activity Kathryn described in which pictures of skills/topics are placed around the room and students stand by the picture of what they most want/need to develop English skills for. This is sometimes called "Four Corners," but could defini...

TESL 0100 Unit 1 Reflection The first week of my TESL courses was extremely eye-opening! First of all, I learned about and tried out a lot of new types of educational technologies and social media tools that I had not been very familiar with previously. I created a Twitter account and an About.me page, started this Blog, and began to expand my Professional Learning Network (PLN), among other things. I have also been refreshing my memory about lesson planning for English Language Learners (ELLs), while learning about innovative and new ways to teach ESL. I taught ESL for about six years at the beginning of my teaching career, but at that time I did not have any formal TESL training. Plus, times have changed, and technology has greatly advanced in the last twenty years, so I think it is time for an update! It took a while to figure out the ins and outs of some of the technological aspects that are a part of this course, but I think I have worked out most of the kinks. This ...

TESL 0100 This is my Professional Learning Network. It is still a work in progress; I would like to possibly add some graphics in the future, and I left one circle blank for future ideas. I think it will evolve as I continue through the TESL Certificate Program.

TESL 0100 Hello, my name is Sheila Bostick. I am an educator and a lifelong learner. I have been employed in the field of education for 20 years. I have a very strong background in literacy and have worked with students from preschool to adult. I have been working as a Reading Recovery Teacher in the Lord Selkirk School Division in Selkirk, MB for the past five years.  I taught English as a Second Language at the very beginning of my teaching career and am interested in returning to English language instruction. I am enrolled in the TESL Certificate program at The University of Manitoba. This is the beginning of my TESL journey.