PROFESSIONAL COMPETENCY 1
Field Experience 1
It is important for an ESL teacher to note that language plays a large role in student's cultures, whether it is the strong role that French may play in a Quebecois identity, the proud self-identification of someone as an Anglophone, or the other home languages that people bring and fight to maintain in Quebec. In my field experience, I made sure to pay attention to student linguistic backgrounds specifically, and the way they perceived English and/or French.
Since my first field experience, I have also had the opportunity to work with peers in my Sociolinguistics in L2 Education class, and we created a series of work throughout the course that explored the cultural aspect of French and English speaking within Montreal.
My group members and I in this course made a storify about the social aspects of language in order to better understand how second language learning will affect our students. We have also researched code-switching and how it relates to identity, and made a graphic organizer as to how language informs identity in Quebec.
Field Experience 2
During this placement, I was able to observe a great diversity in student culture as well as student needs. I took special care to take in as much as possible! Excerpts from my journal regarding the classroom and school atmosphere can be viewed at the following links: Part 1 and Part 2.
I took great care to adjust my teaching to student needs as well. Linked here are the edited and final versions of the second lesson from my Intro to Food and Restaurants. In my reflection, one can see that I've taken great care to take the student's environments, cultures and learning backgrounds into account when planning my lesson.