Teaching by principles, ch. 1&2

I just want to start by saying that the first page of this chapter was extremely uplifting and I was really excited by my career choice having read the first chapter.  Although it points out the challenges that will come as well, I really enjoyed being reminded of how much my profession will make a difference which is something I should remind myself on a daily basis especially when things become overwhelming. “Few professions can offer the fulfillment of knowing that your seemingly insignificant work really can make a difference in a world in need of communication that transcends national borders and interests”.  

The drill of analyzing a teachers approach to teaching different topics is really helpful because I like to analyze my own lesson plans in order to make them better and I appreciate feedback as well. In Ms. Lee’s lesson plans it is very apparent that she is a flexible teacher. She realized that some aspects of the activities proved too demanding for students and in order to make sure that each student is getting the full understanding of the lesson she helped by explaining things herself instead of having volunteers (like with the movie categories) so that each and every student understood instead of just a handful.

As I continued reading, I liked being able to split up a lesson plan with the ideas of approach, method and technique. It was interesting to see how many different varieties of these ideas were made throughout time until present day. I also liked to analyze the different learning methods and feel that my personal favorite was the “suggestopedia” that stated great quantities of material can be processed if the right learning conditions are given.  I really agree with this idea because I know how I learn, and I am much more prone to developing and learning if I am in an environment in which I am comfortable in.

ENG 345 blog post #1

Diving into my third TESOL class is really exciting to me because now that I understand the basic fundamentals of the principles behind TESOL now we get to learn "beyond" the methods. I am a senior Spanish education major with a minor in TESOL and I will be student teaching in the spring (provided I pass my OPI, fingers crossed!) I had the opportunity of studying abroad in fall of 2010 and I would absolutely love to visit another Spanish speaking country very soon. I have not been placed for my student teaching but I would like to be placed somewhere in the Northwest suburbs since that is where I was raised. I think my ideal setting would be teaching Spanish in a highschool but I would also be interested in trying out the middle school age group at some point in my life.  I think that down the road once I have a better grasp of the language and it is very natural, I would love to teach ESL in a middle school because I think I would be making much more of a difference teaching English because although Spanish is useful to know in the United States, it is not necessary while  without an understanding of English it would be very difficult to get by. With this in mind, I look forward to learning more about how I can teach ESL classes in various settings this semester.