TESL 0100: Unit 10 Reflection - Look How Far We've Come!

TESL 0100 Unit 10 Reflection: Look How Far We’ve Come!

(Source: Etienne Robin)

It’s incredible how quickly time has flown by! Within the blink of an eye, we are already heading into the last week of this course. Seeing as this is the last blogpost I’ll be writing for TESL 0100, I would like to take the time to stop and reflect on my learning over these past ten units. We’ve covered quite a bit of content and so I would like to share three things that really resonated with me.

The first thing that particularly stood out to me were the different roles a teacher must assume in the classroom. Brown and Lee (2015) outlined these roles on pages 259 – 261:

1.)    Teacher as Controller

2.)    Teacher as Director

3.)    Teacher as Manager

4.)    Teacher as Facilitator

5.)    Teacher as Resource

Until reading this chapter, I hadn’t given much though to the various roles a teacher needs to take on in order effectively interact with their students. By stating them and describing each one, Brown and Lee give some valuable insight into why each role is necessary. I must confess that there are a few roles that I don’t feel fully comfortable assuming, such as the role of facilitator. I think another thing that is somewhat intimidating is discerning when to take on which role. With that said, I feel that this is something I’ll simply have to work out as I gain experience teaching my future students. Thanks to Brown and Lee, I can now reflect more deeply on each role and I think that will help me to discern which role to use and when.

The second part of this course that really resonated with me was establishing and expanding my personal learning network. As I prepare to enter into the world of teaching, I’ve come to realize how important it is to build up an inventory of resources to use as well as a community of people I can turn to for advice and information. I honestly cannot imagine taking on a teaching job without any of this! This course in particular has helped me to expand the PLN I had started to build throughout the other courses. One area of my PLN that has grown the most is the connections I have made with my TESL peers. Over these past ten weeks I have learned so much from them! They have all provided incredibly useful websites, resources, and insight into the world of TESL.  

The final thing that really had an impact on me were all the different teachers in the ESL world who shared their personal stories each unit. As a new teacher, I valued hearing from them so much because it reassured me that people from all walks of life, coming from different backgrounds can succeed if they give their all. What seems to be a recurring theme amongst them is that they are all continuously working to better themselves. They are keeping up-to-date with research, they are attending seminars and conferences, they are collaborating with fellow ESL teachers, and most importantly they are making genuine efforts to give their students the best possible language education. That to me is inspiring and is something I want to do when I become an ESL teacher. I hope to never stop learning and constantly work at bettering myself as a teacher. To end this blogpost, I’d like to thank my teacher, Tatiana, for being a valuable guide and resource over these ten weeks. At times some of the course work was challenging and confusing, but she helped me and my classmates to work through it. Thank you!

References

H. Brown, H. L. (2015). Teaching by Principles: An Interactive Approach to Language Pedagogy. White Plains, NY: Pearson Education, Inc. .