Internship In Tesol

INTERNSHIP IN TESOL

Abstract
This paper is a reflection on the insight and learning I have reached over the past 8 weeks. It explains found strengths and weaknesses in my own daily teaching, and it indicates areas of growth and change through some examples. Finally the conclusion is an aim to project my own future career and the possible challenges I may encounter as well as tools ofprofessional development that might assist me in this endeavor.

Introduction
This was one of the most challenging courses of the whole program, but it was also one that taught me a lot about myself as a teacher. It is amazing how revealing it can be to place yourself in the observer’s spot and rediscover your own strengths and areas in need.

Writing this paper brings to my mind, a lot ofpremises that have been checked off and other personal projects that have been remaining pending until the conclusion of the program. Right now I look back and try to consider what I have learned and what I did not. It is not a simple task to make a list of weaknesses or strengths. However, I know that I still have a lot to learn and become familiar with in terms of instruction. I still think I amvery good at preparing and projecting the lesson, yet I recognize that I need to gain confidence in change and modification when a lesson does not progress as I had planned. When I see a senior teacher doing this in the midst of the lesson, with no problems, seamlessly, I assume that this ability comes in time and with experience.
Through this course I gained more confidence in my owndecisions about instruction and curriculum mapping. Going to other classrooms to observe lessons helped me situate my own expertise and the things I want to improve or implement. In this sense I think I also gained humbleness and the ability to ask questions and receive feedback from my own fellow teachers.
An area that I wanted to polish in this sense was to recognize that my own up-bringing deeplyaffects the way I see my students. I learned that as I find myself teaching and living in a social environment that is also new to me, I need to consider how important is to think about and learn from those differences.
Over the last eight weeks I learned that differences among people (teacher to teacher, student to teacher, student to student) can teach us a lot. Multicultural education callsfor the daily strive towards cooperation and appreciation of differences among members of the community. We need to be the models.

Considering this course as a self-assessment I encounter several situations for growth and for change. One example was to re-discover the importance of facilitating student conversation, that I saw in another classroom while doing my observations, wherestudents really enjoy and benefit from the discussion about a relevant topic to themselves, and where they not only speak, but they have the mission to solve a problem or create a final product that will be presented to the group. That was a great piece of growth for me. To realize that even in the middle of our tight schedules in school we can still find the time and the spaces to make learningcooperative. I have been so focused on teacher directed instruction for so long that I have to rekindle those dynamics in my own classroom
I found another example for growth was so see the same lesson that I taught in my classroom, in another classroom. It was an invaluable view of all the activities that can be done and are still unexplored. The day I observed how the teacher modified the ThankYou notes for an activity about signing each other’s yearbooks, I realized that change does not have to be radical or that because one idea is good, it does not mean all other ideas are bad. It was very constructive to see the fruits of a good classroom management and the pay off of having procedures in place. It became obvious when the students, despite of their excitement, took the change in an...