Candidates Program Reflection

The journey through the TESOL program at Touro College has taught many lessons both professionally and personally. In terms of teaching practice, I truly feel much more confident in the classroom. Although we do study a lot of theory throughout the program, the aspects of the program that stuck the most with me was the practical classroom activities. Sometimes these ideas were suggested by professors and a lot of the time these activities were sparked by teacher peers in the program sharing their experiences. One example that comes to mind is the infographic. Before the TESOL program I have never used infographics in the classroom but now it is a regular part of my teaching practice. Another method learned from the TESOL program that is a big part of my everyday teaching is Total Physical Response. When introducing vocabulary, my students and I come up with a movement that goes with the word. I noticed once I started using TPR, there was a significant improvement in students vocabulary retention.

After only two in person classes, the pandemic hit and the program went fully remote. At first, I was disappointed because I liked in person classes but honestly the ZOOM meetings brought some comfort during uncertain times. During the times of online classes, we had many discussion boards which allowed us as teachers and peers to share ideas, tools, websites, and just advice to each other. I recall one of my professors sharing ways to use Google Jamboard in creative ways. This was something that I used with my own class during remote learning and even now in school when we have tablet time. In addition to the professional growth, I also had personal growth. I had to work on time management, push my creativity, and applying feedback from others. During practicum feedback from my field faculty helped me to emphasize the learning objectives in my lessons. I look at my lesson plans and make sure the four domains of reading, writing, listening, and speaking are clearly incorporated to help student practice using language.

During this journey through the TESOL program, there was definitely a lot of growth professionally and personally. As my next step for continue professional growth, I aspire to get a PhD to continue my studies in education.