When I began this journey to become an ESL teacher, I felt I had a good understanding of what teaching English entailed. I had experienced several years of classroom volunteering, and interacting with students, and seen examples of both excellent, as well as not-so-good teachers. I had a teaching background from my previous job and had facilitated many workshops. And I felt the TESL classroom courses had given me a very good understanding of what ESL teaching required. However, the test truly is in actually doing the teaching!
One of my greatest strengths as a teacher is that I really love interacting with the students, learning their backgrounds, goals and just discussing their everyday living and challenges, especially LINC and literacy students. I try very hard to connect with the students to find what they need to succeed as a new resident of Canada. I’m often surprised with their tenacity and the hardships they endure. Therefore, trying to make learning English and Canadian culture easier for them is my goal. I am typically a fairly organized person, and I think this is a great asset to teaching, as planning is a huge part of ESL teaching. I also think that I can inspire students to work hard for their goals to achieve them, as I have had to do in my own life. I also like sharing my own experiences and interests with the students, which helps them relate to living here.
There is always room for self-improvement in anything we do. I am typically a quieter person who does not like being at the center of attention, so facilitating a class is a challenge that I have to really work at. I find that if I am organized it usually goes well. However, in an ESL class you must be more spontaneous, and open to where the learning takes you sometimes, and recognize the immediate needs of the students. So this is one of my goals. I am also usually too serious, and need to focus on the lighter side of life, and bring some of this into the class. One of the challenges that I had with teaching was knowing the level of understanding of the students and teach to that. Even though the CLB levels are defined for the class, this may not always be truly reflected in the class makeup and I will have to be more perceptive to this. Also, teaching online has its challenges and I will focus on learning better ways and methods for online teaching in the future.
The LINC class that I taught was unique in that it was all female, and most were mothers. They were truly a joy to work with. I had always envisioned myself working with a group like this that I could relate well to, or a group of older learners, as I am older myself. Both of these groups face unique barriers to learning, and I feel that I can help them meet their challenges. I won’t be working fulltime in the future, but I hope to obtain experience teaching different levels and a variety of classes to determine the best fit for me, and where the need is. I will be doing some one-on-one teaching online, and possibly some substitute teaching online.
The students’ assessment of my teaching was helpful and confirmed my own thoughts. Generally, they felt they were successfully learning both the language and culture. However, many felt I was going too fast and giving them too much information. So in my planning I must be more repetitive with activities and exercises, slow the pace of new material, and choose videos and online material that are more appropriate. The assessment suggested that their understanding of my speaking and explanations was appropriate, and the homework difficulty was also in mid-range in the class which was good. Several of the learners commented on how they really appreciated my detailed error correction of their homework, and felt it really helped them learn. So this is something I think is very important to continue.
Experiencing real teaching in an ESL classroom had its challenges for me. However, I feel much more confident about the teaching process, my abilities, facing future challenges, and how to adapt to and learn from each class. It has been a great experience, and I am looking forward to my new ESL teaching career! My daily teaching reflections can be found on my blog at https://maureenteslblog.blogspot.com/2020/
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