Blog Post 1: All About Me

I am a fifth year senior and I will be student teaching next semester at Buffalo Grove High School back at home.  My major is secondary English education and my minors are TESOL and Children's Studies.  I have endorsements in ELL, middle school and reading.  I will also be a certified reading specialist.

Next semester I am teaching three English classes and two ESL classes.  I am so nervous for the ESL classes!  I feel that I am ready to teach English literature, grammar and composition, but I do not feel ready to teach ESL.  I am hoping and I am sure that I will learn a lot this semester and I will feel much more secure and confident in my ESL teaching abilities.

In the future, I have always wanted to be a high school English teacher.  But now that I am minoring in TESOL and am becoming a reading specialist, I feel that I could be happy in many different disciplines.  I think that my student teaching experiences will allow me to figure out which I enjoy more.

I believe that my interest in TESOL began in high school.  I went to a high school that was extremely diverse; it was 53% Hispanic as well as many Asian, Polish, African American and Russian students.  Being amongst the minority of the population, I learned a great deal about different cultures and how people assimilate to "American" cultures and lifestyles.  I found it fascinating how the students were able to maintain such a strong relationship with their home culture.  I always loved when my high school sponsored Cultural Week.  Groups of students had tables that had information, food, decorations, etc. from their culture.  It was so much fun and educational.  They then had a variety show where each country would perform traditional dances from their cultures.  It was such an inviting environment and really helped everyone appreciate the diversity that we have that we sometimes take for granted.

My future ambitions in this area would be to continue and add on to these types of programs.  I would love to sponsor something like this.  I think that one of the most valuable things that high school students need to learn is about diversity and how important it is to our society. When they then go out into the real world they will have a better understanding of the people around them.