Teach English Language example essay topic

As books have served throughout time as a link between generations as well as cultures, literature serves as an encompassment of all the endeavors of women and men, giving its students a profound sense of cultural and historical identity as well as the linguistic power to express each unique perspective. In 1994 I decided to take advantage of one of the overseas program that the University of Oregon had to offer. My Spanish teacher and mentor recommended that I visit his hometown of Guanajuato, M'exico, where he continues to spend every summer with his family. He assured me that it was an excellent city to both absorb the culture of the country while attending courses at the public university, "which is itself older than the United States", he added. Arriving there I found the cliff-surrounded city of cobble- stoned streets every bit as enchanting and full of mystique and lore as Gabriel Garcia M'arquez had described his imaginary Latin American village of Mac undo.

One day while sitting in the Plaza de la Paz, I was approached by two grinning middle aged architects who told me that they had studied English the previous year with and exchange student from Oregon and would love a continuation. This became my introduction to teaching. Using vacant classrooms at the University, I taught a group of six from the architecture firm hour-long classes in grammar, speaking, listening comprehension, composition, and conversation. After a few months I began to notice not only an ease growing in their command of the language but an ease and confidence growing in myself as a teacher.

This sense of a mutual exchange of knowledge and has led to a meaningful relationship that we have kept to date. After teaching private lessons in Guanajuato, I became a full- time teacher at the University for a year, and also became a lifelong teacher. After returning to the University of Oregon to complete my undergraduate degree in English, I volunteered as a Teacher's Assistant at San Francisco's Mission High School where I helped teach English Language, Literature and Composition to students from a wide variety of cultural backgrounds. This experience served for me as an introduction to teaching and disciplining adolescents. While all teachers want to befriend each student and teach through praise rather than punishment, this philosophy is polemical in public high schools. I learned that establishing authority within the classroom came before more rewarding connections with adolescents could be made.

I also learned that parental support is an absolute must with adolescent students and that establishing parental support is an invaluable asset in successfully directing high school students. After my one-term assignment at Mission High School, I became a full-time English- as-a-Second-Language Instructor at the Berlitz Language School in San Francisco. I went through a short training program on the "Berlitz Method" which I continue to apply to first-time, breaking-the-ice situations with beginning English Students. Ranging from one-on-one classes to small groups, I taught a variety of levels from beginning classes to specialized advanced classes on Business English and Banking and Financing both on- site and off-site at establishments such as Autodesk and the University of California at Berkley. At Berlitz I gained a foundational knowledge of language acquisition with first- time English speakers and about the assessment of students' goals and abilities. Having received only positive reviews, I was nominated "Teacher of the Year" at Berlitz in 1999.

After three years with Berlitz, I accepted a position at San Francisco's American Academy of English where I teach a 20-40-student beginner's course as well as a course on TOEFL preparation, which was made up of sections on advanced grammar, reading comprehension, listening comprehension, and essay writing. I have worked for AAE for almost two years now, on a part-time basis, while earning my Master's degree at San Francisco State University. Here I have acquired experience building a curriculum and choosing materials for the class. While I have acquired specialized skills at each of these schools, I always keep the Ojibwe philosophy of the me kun in mind and a constantly envisioning and revising a growing and living philosophy on teaching based on captivating and holding the students' attention and planting seeds of living knowledge, while cultivating the seeds to grow as a teacher. This philosophy contains the sense of mutual embellishment that ultimately keeps teaching fresh and alive.

Having acquired different kills at each of the schools for which I have taught, I have learned that the teacher continues to develop. Equipped with a doctorate degree in Comparative Literature with a focus in Literature of the Americas, I aim to combine my experience and education in the perusal of a career teaching English and Spanish language, composition, and literature.