Language Teaching Studies MA Capstone Project Portfolio

Hello and welcome my Master's capstone project portfolio, where I share my journey through the LTS program.

Ever since I was a child, I dreamed of becoming a teacher. I would play pretend school with my five younger siblings, sitting them down in a classroom format in our living room, teaching them something, assigning homework, giving grades in a "teacher's" notebook, and even administering "tests". I now realize that I was also practicing differentiated teaching because my "students" were all different ages and at different levels in reading, writing, and math.

As I was finishing high school, I began thinking about entering a teaching program. However, I did not have enough support at the time and ended up registering for general education classes at my local community college. Now knowing what path to take after transferring to a university, I decided to improve my Russian skills and continue learning Spanish, so I took some language classes. I enjoyed these classes so much that I ended up graduating with a foreign languages degree in Spanish and Russian. 

After that, life led me into various careers in translation, childcare, optometric support, pharmacy, and disability care fields. However, after working in each for several years, I always felt that teaching was still calling out to me. For that reason, I would find myself in temporary teaching and tutoring positions across several continents. At the same time, I would look into various teaching programs, but I couldn't decide which one to apply to because I did not want to be limited to a certain language or age of learners.

Finally, I decided to go into tutoring full-time by becoming an independent teacher of literacy and languages. That is when I decided that in order to provide high-quality and effective instruction, I want to get a teaching degree after all. This time, I found the Language Teaching Studies Master’s program at University of Oregon. It was exactly what I was looking for all these years!

In this program, I have researched and worked on materials for instruction in English, Russian, and Spanish. The artifacts I present in this portfolio will be for teaching contexts for all three languages. 

I have taken classes in curriculum and materials design, testing and assessment, digitally-mediated language learning, pronunciation instruction, teaching culture and literature, teaching and learning pragmatics, research methods, second-language acquisition, and dual language development.

On this site, you will find artifacts I have created throughout my studies. These include classroom activities, lesson plans, articles analyses, course designs, teaching reflections, and other projects. These artifacts demonstrate my knowledge and practice in six areas of competency: language as a dynamic system, design, digitally-mediated language learning, assessment, teaching, and research. Clicking on the 'Project' page will take you to the artifacts.

My main interests are currently in heritage language instruction, translanguaging, and curriculum development. I hope to continue growing my experience and research in these areas. Most importantly, I am now much more prepared to serve my students, who are the reason why I applied to this program.

Get in touch at annaikrini@gmail.com 

I will be happy to connect, collaborate, learn, and provide assistance in any way I can!