Hyeonseong Shin (Daniel)

Letter of Summation
While taking the TESOL program for 1 year, I have learned various methods, theories,
and teaching skills from TESOL classes, observations, and the student-teaching experience.
However, I would like to remark two significant perceptions that have influenced so much on my
teaching: task-based language teaching (TBLT) and a student-centered class.
First and foremost, task-based language teaching (TBLT), which enables students to learn
a target language by engaging them in a variety of tasks that have a clear outcome (Larsonfreeman and Anderson, 2011), helped me to extend my ideas about how to set communicative
environment in language teaching. Although I learned different kinds of methods and approaches
in Frameworks and Methods for TESOL, I think that TBLT is able to engage students in
communicative situation. In TESOL Conversation Methodologies, I learned ideas how to apply
TBLT in speaking and conversation class, which is to assign students a task that creates a dialog
and does role-playing based on the given scenario. When I was doing student-teaching in my last
quarter, I tried teaching conversation based on TBLT. My lesson focused on accuracy as well as
fluency in order to supplement the disadvantage of TBLT by explaining target grammar points
briefly at the end of the class. The lesson was successful because the students totally got involved
while doing their tasks, which were to create a dialog and to do role-playing. According to
Larson-freeman and Anderson (2011), TBLT maintains that error correction is done through
recasts or modeling or by giving brief grammar explanations because focus on form is essential
to students learning. However, because of the time limitation, I could not cover grammar part at
the end of the class as much as I planned. I also could not provide enough feedback and

comments on their outcomes. In my future teaching, I will split up this TBLT lesson into two
classes so that not only students can have opportunities to get enough comments and feedback
from the teacher, but they also can improve accuracy in language use.
Secondly, I have learned the importance of the student-centered class throughout the
TESOL program. In the student-centered class, the teacher helps students develop their language
skills because the teachers role is more that of a facilitator than instructor; the students are active
participants in the learning process (Jones, 2007). In other words, the role of teachers is to help
and encourage students to develop their skills as co-learners (Richards, 2006). While observing
classes at UCR Extension, I saw how the teachers encouraged and supported students in the
student-centered class. For instance, in Jorgensens class (Observation #4), the teacher helped
students work independently, monitoring them while they were working together (Jones, 2007).
The students took notes some useful expressions that they heard during weekdays such as idioms
or slangs from their friends or the internet. With their partner, students shared their expressions
and were asked to create a brief dialog including the expressions. While the students were
creating their dialogs, the teacher walked around and helped if they asked. After that, by
presenting their created dialogs, students introduced their useful expressions to other students.
The teacher did not explain the meanings of the expressions immediately. She gave the students
some time to guess the meanings on their own. I think that this approach enabled students to get
involved in their class and to enjoy using English to communicate with others as the studentcentered class (Jones, 2007). My future teaching environment is going to be in Korea where most
students feel hard to speak to someone in English and there still are a lot of teacher-centered
classes. In Korea, I will design the student-centered class so that students will not hesitate to
speak in English and will feel comfortable to learn English by communicating with classmates.

Up until now, I have noted two concepts that are meaningful to me throughout the
TESOL program: task-based language teaching and the student-centered class. A year ago, when
I began the TESOL program, I set my goal, which was to be the teacher who enables students to
communicate with others and makes enjoyable classroom environment. From the TESOL
program, I believe that I have obtained the ideas to accomplish my goals in my future classroom.
After finishing TESOL program, I will still be keeping making efforts to be the teacher that I
would like to be.

References
Larsen-Freeman, D., & Anderson, M. (2011). In Techniques and principles in Language
Teaching. New York, N.Y., USA: Oxford University Press.
Jones, L. (2007). The Student-centered Classroom. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press.
Richards, J. (2006). Classroom Activities in Communicative Language Teaching.
In Communicative language teaching today. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press.