Esl - Tumblr Posts
ever wonder what english sounds like to people who don’t speak english? (as a recovering ESL student who spent many sleepless nights in my homeland of puerto rico trying to decipher song lyrics, i relate to this in ways that i cannot even begin to explain)
Seventh Classroom…
It was mostly in the library at first…
A pull out situation for English Language Learners…
Three and a half weeks were spent on ACCESS testing…
Two weeks were spent in the classroom…
Then BOOM: Pandemic…
There was no reason for me to stay at the Grad House so I left…
Well, I picked up UDairy Ice Cream and Ramen from Kumamoto in Newark, DE…
THEN I left…
So really, my seventh classroom was mostly on Zoom…
I did not end up doing the edTPA…
But I have a lesson, materials, and assessments set up to do so…
Ninth Classroom...
I bounced from school-to-school for a while before landing…
I was placed in a pull-out position where I would work with English Language Learners…
They were new to the country and new to the school…
A lot of the students were true beginners unable to associate phoneme to letter…
It was a lot of work, considering I only see them twice a week for half an hour at most…
Hybrid classes…come to school two days…go virtual three…
Except they don’t show up and do no work…
Fortunately, I’m not a ‘real’ teacher yet…
They only get some additional language support from me…completely homework free.
Of if they needed to talk…I was always willing to listen.
The Pandemic is hard on all of us…
Forget your standards and your deadlines…
Let children be children…
Life Changing Moments…
In teaching there are sometimes life changing moments…
One such moment for me was when I first got sucked into teaching ESL.
Another such moment was when I sat in on an ESL kindergarten class…
I met my first little autistic student.
He was non-verbal and hated colors and loud noises.
His fixation was a car…but it was also me…oddly enough.
Direct eye contact and then a hug…
His teacher discouraged it… It was my first day there and she did not know me.
But I did not mind the hug…
From then on, every time he saw me, he’d rush over to hug me or show me something he worked on in class…
This is how I decided that my next Master’s degree will be in Special Education, one sweet boy who changed my life…
Certification Pending...
This is such a depressing thing to see when you have studied for what essentially amounts to three months straight.
Sadly, I only have myself to blame considering I let my background check slip. Now I have to get in touch with people to have my work email unlocked.
It has been a long and winding road already…
No one at grad school said anything about additional certification…
The program was geared towards preparing student to teach adults, not kids.
Then again, when I asked the ‘teaching career’ guru if I should get certified in general education or special education…she said ‘no’.
Do yourself a favor, if you are going to specialize in ESL, special education, or any other area…go for additional certification in general education. There are more special education jobs than there are ESL (in my State, anyway) and there is WAY more general education jobs than there are both ESL and special education combined.
Get it while you are still in college!
It will open up three times as many doors for you!
Start in general education, get that experience, then work towards the subject or kinds of students you actually want to teach.
Get your foot in the door!
Looking up...
Breakthrough finally
Happiness can be real now
I have a new job.
Weird Kid...
Strange kid, why like me
I’m a weird, childless spinster
Nobody likes me.
Hug...?
Hug hug hug hug hug
You’re my favorite teacher
No, no please don’t leave!
Eleventh Classroom...
It’s been a year…
Still AroAce…
Still a teacher…
Still barely sane…
I went from being a ‘traveling ESL teacher’ to a paraprofessional at a Montessori school. I am not impressed. Oh sure, Montessori is a wonderful learning philosophy but it is not for everyone. It is certainly not for a teacher with ADHD that struggles with hyperfocus. The individualized lessons given are often at the cost of classroom management or vice versa.
The parents who send their kids to a Montessori school do so in lieu of seeking out professional help for their unique or troubled child. I have TWELVE out of twenty-six students who are either obviously ADHD or obviously Autistic to some degree. Two have IEPs and the rest are ‘busy kids’ in their parents’ eyes.
This is a challenge that I have no problem with. I LOVE my students.
BUT I am not thrilled with their parents…
‘I want to focus on this pregnancy’…Yeah, but while you’re doing that you could LAY in bed and work with your son on his letter sounds.
‘My parents are in a motel getting their act together’…AKA, drug addicts.
‘My mom says that this rule is dumb’…Sorry, it’s a SCHOOL rule. No sweets.
The only thing worse than the parents is how this school is run…
The double standards and obvious favoritism is what REALLY pisses me off.
I do my job, I get yelled at by THREE different people.
Someone else DOESN’T do their job and they get praised…wonderful.
Oh yeah, and we have FOUR Montessori teachers out of FORTY.
the problem with reading and writing leading to a strong vocabulary is that you tend to know the vibe of words instead of their meanings.
if I used this word in a sentence, would it make sense? absolutely. if you asked me what it meant, could I tell you? absolutely not.
Sometimes I get hit with the realisation that most people around me do not deep dive into rabbit holes like spending 1 1/2 hours on Google Maps to research routes a fictional character could take - in an area, a country, a continent I've never been to. Decades before I was even born. Referencing a culture and slang I've never personally experienced. And then writing it down in that weird ESL mix of British English they teach in our German schools and American English which I got used to due to pop culture. Nobody speaks about how wild it can be to write fanfiction, haha. Like, I can't even talk to non-fanfic-obsessed people about it because they're like what did you do????? why????? or just that tense, "polite" silence when they obviously have no clue what to answer because the mere concept of fanfiction is so very foreign to them.