Reflection on Program Goals

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This portfolio showcases the development of my  skill set according to the five TESOL certificate program goals set by the Penn State Department of Applied Linguistics:

  1. Your ability to analyze various domains of language (e.g., phonological, lexical, grammatical, and pragmatic) in relation to adult learner language development and to apply these understandings to adult English language teaching
  2. Your ability to design, adapt, and evaluate curricula, technology, media, and other resources that meet the specific instructional and language-related needs and abilities of adult English language learners
  3. Your ability to demonstrate understanding of (a) the multilingual and multicultural contexts within which adult English language learners live and work and (b) the role of learning and using English in an increasingly globalized world
  4. Your ability to design and use effective instructional strategies for one-on-one tutoring, classroom teaching, and learner assessment
  5. Your ability to create a professional TESOL e-portfolio as a final capstone project

I achieved these objectives while creating various documents for my Applied Linguistics courses and while teaching and tutoring in a variety of contexts in the Penn State community.

Applied Linguistics Courses

Through taking four online courses and completing various teaching and tutoring tasks in my community, I have grown as a teacher by becoming more familiar with the self-reflective, reasoning process of adapting to various kinds of classrooms. The four courses I took are entitled as follows:

  • Applied Linguistics 802 Focus on English: Teaching Form, Meaning and Use.
    • “Develops an understanding of the various domains of the English language as relevant for adult English language learning and teaching.”
  • Applied Linguistics 804 Focus on Learners: Identity, Community and Language Learning.
    • “Explores how individual identities shaped by cultural differences, social positioning, institutional roles and structures influence English language learning and teaching.”
  • Applied Linguistics 806 Focus on Classrooms: Planning and Supporting Language Learning.
    • “Develops a critical awareness of one’s teaching practice and highlights instructional planning and classroom interactions with adult English language learners.”
  • Applied Linguistics 808 Focus on Instruction: Teaching and Assessing Language Learning.
    • “Develops an understanding of and ability to use effective teaching and assessment practices that support adult English language learning.”

Community Learning Tasks

Two learning activities I did in the community were

  1. Tutoring an international graduate student at the Penn State Law School, and
  2. Observing and teaching a graduate level oral skills ESL course for international teaching assistants at Penn State University.

I should note that since fall 2014, I have been teaching ESL Composition full-time at Penn State, and thus I have had ample opportunity to enact the concepts I have been learning in my online coursework when teaching my own students. The last two years of my life have involved a constant cycling between theory and classroom application, allowing me time to digest new pedagogical concepts both through reading and through first-hand experience with students.