Claudia Rivera Garcia

ENG484 TESOL Practicum

Professor Ruby Macksoud

August 10, 2020

TESOL Certification Summer 2020 Practicum

During the summer of 2020, I successfully completed a TESOL practicum, which mainly

focused on diversifying my experience with different the target populations, as well as

transforming previous in-class coursework, through methodical reflection, into materials which I

can further deploy in-field as a TESOL professional. This process was partially informed by the

teaching theories presented in the book, Teaching by Principles, which provided comprehensive

explanations on teaching methods, class pacing, lesson planning, among other critical teaching

techniques. My TESOL practicum focused on both in-person teaching of an older Spanish

speaking pupil, as well as materials development for Chinese youth ages 12-14. My work within

both these projects has been fundamental in forming my pedagogical goals for future classrooms,

where I now aim to emphasize equity, inclusion and exchange of culture within my language

classroom, aim to form connections within my teaching network in my arrival country, and aim

to continue my process of self-reflection to continue growing as a TESOL professional

throughout my career.

TESOL Practicum Target Population: Spanish Speaking Pupil

During this TESOL practicum, part of my project time was used to tutor an older Spanish

speaking pupil at the absolute beginner English level. Because of my immigrant roots, I am

interested in future work with Spanish speaking populations, particularly newly immigrated

grandparents or parents of first-generation children. I aim to help ease the transition into life
within the US by teaching critical, real-life language skills. Thus, my older Spanish speaking

pupil and her goals in becoming fluent in the basics of English posed a perfect opportunity in

which I could further understand teaching pedagogies that would be effective within this learning

context, all while being sensitive to her learning style and disabilities.

Overall with her learning, her automaticity was definitely “impeded by overanalysis of

language forms”, where she initially felt more apprehensive about using the vocabulary learned

in our lessons (Brown & Lee, p.69). Since I am a native Spanish speaker, I started incorporating

Spanish into the very beginning lessons, because though “in the United States bilingual

education has been highly politicized and with inaccurate data reported by self-interests, ‘often

based on ignorance and misunderstanding’” native language use has been proven to be very

beneficial on student’s learning (Brown & Lee 103). Though I believed that this would help

encourage her to become more confident, I found that general vocabulary understanding was not

the source of her stress. Instead, I quickly understood that this lack of confidence occurred

mainly when I overly stressed precise structure and grammar or if I corrected her too often. She

would abruptly close up and be less willing to participate in the activities. This was very

challenging for me, since I had to quickly adapt and be flexible in improvising during lesson

times in order to provide a more positive learning experience for her.

In response to this challenge, I began taking more of a Natural approach theory to my

teaching with her, which stresses that the “essence of language is meaning, vocabulary, not

grammar” (Brown, 36). This means that I focused on giving her working English skills that are

“derived from [her] learner needs”, which meant, not focusing on forms like grammar at the

early stages, but instead focusing on forming a fundamental understanding of the meaning of

words and postponing this precise pronunciation work until she had more of a grasp on the
vocabulary’s meaning (Brown, 36). For example, I would usually first introduce the vocabulary

of the lesson within the first few minutes, then ‘check’ for understanding through playing a

game/a kinesthetic activity, which usually involved a high-excitement reward. This reward

system was also in response to her learning needs, where I found that she absorbed more

information through extrinsic motives (Brown & Lee, p.72). I would often make sure to provide

her with small rewards or positive words of encouragement to reassure her participation. Then,

the lesson would finish and she would be given the homework to practice spelling and speaking

the words taught during lesson time on her own, encouraging her self-regulation and autonomy

by assigning tasks like watching a movie then reporting back next meeting, completing a lesson

on Duolingo, etc (Brown & Lee, p.85). The next lesson, at the very beginning of our time

together, I would then have a low-risk assessment meant to encourage agency by providing

positive feedback on the ways in which she performed well, while at the same time working on

more precise pronunciation without overcorrection.

Furthermore, this particular pupil, when lessons became too difficult, she would begin to

shut down her participation within her activity. For example, while completing an activity of

filling in the blanks to test her knowledge regarding previous lessons, she had trouble filling in

blanks, so she refused to attempt the questions and just sat there until the timer went off. This

was very uncharacteristic of her, but also the moment made me change my teaching perspective

in order to address these issues. I realized that I needed to shift my lessons to make sure that the

tasks and their complexity did not cause undue difficulty, and I also needed make sure that I was

only testing her on her previously learned words (Lee & Brown, 356). As a result of this

incident, I added more time for vocabulary and more time for review toward the end of the
session, as well as more (though not excessive amounts of) vocabulary homework to reinforce

learning.

Another habit this particular pupil had was to very slyly trick me into giving her answers

if we were completing a game. An example of this was during one of our lessons, once we

moved past the basic commands and basic numbers, I attempted to focus even more on

pronunciation. One activity that I tried with my pupil was doing minimal-pair drills using a word

bank, in which listed were minimal pairs that the student would read aloud and asked to spot the

phonetic differences. This was particularly difficult for my student, so we started off very slowly

and it continued at a very slow pace. However, once we sped up slightly, my pupil just waited

for me to provide an answer, which was not conducive to her self-regulation and autonomy. A

solution that I then began to implement was to give her homework that would also preview the

exercises. I also began to exercise self-restraint, making it a rule of thumb to wait at least six

seconds to give her the answer, regardless if I was the one uncomfortable with the class silence,

so that I could give my pupil adequate time to think and attempt activities on her own.

Finally, one of the major obstacles that I faced while teaching this pupil was

accommodation. During my time working with her, I began learning how to accommodate better

to her physical disabilities, which has taught me one of the most valuable lessons as a teaching

professional seeking to cater to all communities. I found that writing exercises were difficult for

her due to her eyesight being poor, where even with her glasses on she struggled to see printed

worksheets with smaller font and where she also struggled seeing our lesson vocabulary clearly

unless I wrote these out in large bold font on our board. Additionally, she is a much older pupil,

so it is understandably difficult for her to write and hold small pencils due to some medical

conditions which hinder her from having the full range of motion in her hands. Furthermore, she
is a relatively slower learner at times, meaning that I also needed to take that into account when

planning many activities in one lesson.

Here, to overcome these obstacles, I reflected on my understanding of her individual

learning goals and began to accommodate to her disabilities as I worked through each lesson. We

were able to overcome many of the obstacles she faced by some simple fixes, such as thick bold

markers for large bold font and easier grip. Some other changes were a bit more difficult, but I

knew that we could still overcome them. I realized in our lessons that for her, writing was not a

priority because she expressed her desire to be functionally capable in survival English, where

mostly speaking (and some basic reading) were important to her personal English learning

ambitions. Thus, to the assessment and worksheet portions of lessons, I switched most writing

assessments to majority speaking focused (and some reading), making sure to accommodate her

learning abilities. Due to this experience in accommodating to her disabilities, I feel more

prepared for students who may be slower in absorbing information, may have challenges viewing

the board, or may have physical challenges of holding writing tools. Though I believe I still have

much to learn about accommodating to these types of pupils, this experience has further

developed my cultural and disability sensitivity, to create a more disabled inclusive classroom

environment that invites those from many diverse backgrounds into learning English.

TESOL Practicum Target Population: Chinese Speaking Pupils

For my TESOL practicum, I split my work between in-person teaching and materials

development, which has given me a diverse experience and has undoubtedly helped me become

a more culturally sensitive teacher, especially though my growth in developing materials that

cater to different age groups in different cultural settings. For the second half of my TESOL

practicum, I developed materials for Chinese student youth ages 12-14 at the intermediate
English level. I chose this target population due to my commitment to work within the Chinese

contexts, whether it be in Mainland China, Taiwan or Hong Kong. My aim here is to promote the

cultural exchange between the US and China and bridge gaps of cultural misunderstanding for

students.

I also chose this population due to my understanding of the Chinese educational system.

During this time, the youth is mainly studying to prepare for the Gaokao, or the college entrance

exam. This exam is high stakes, so it is a ESL teacher’s duty to help students become even more

prepared for the exam. I realized that the type of pedagogy that I would be adapting to my

language classroom would be a combination of the audiolingual theory, in which the objective is

for the learner to have “control of the structures of sound, form and order”, along with The Silent

Way theory, in which “functional vocabulary and core structure are key to the spirit of the

language” (Brown, 36). This means I took a more vocabulary heavy approach and encouraged

correct form (such as grammar), since I would be teaching towards the success of my students in

the Gaokao, which I kept in mind as I created my activities in my lesson planning. I found

incorporating these theories to be very challenging, since I did not want to my lessons

overwhelm my students or be monotonous with no cultural exchange, which I overcame in

several ways.

Firstly, through my materials development I began to understand how I could “capitalize

on learners’ cultural and linguistic backgrounds, abilities and aspirations, as well as on other

aspects of their identity that are important to them (artistic, academic, etc.)” (Brown & Lee, 103).

The use of the learner’s cultural and linguistic backgrounds in the language classroom is critical

for cultural exchange, not only because incorporating these aspects of their identity is crucial to

creating a classroom that fosters a safe space in which students can talk respectfully to these
identities, but also because it fosters a space in which these identities can be translated beyond

the language classroom. Thus, appealing to my student’s immediate interests like TV shows,

music groups, etc. to gain their attention can be a great tool in fostering this type of environment

(Brown & Lee 121). This type cultural exchange has thus become my goal as I continue further

into teaching in a global classroom and overcoming lesson monotony. In my materials

development, I made sure I incorporated cultural exchange opportunities every lesson. For

example, one of my lessons included an activity in which students would use Douyin (the

Chinese equivalent of TikTok) where students would create a short video on the application

using English. This brought pop culture into the classroom, giving students the opportunity to

show their personal likes/dislikes. Other areas in which I brought in student’s cultures were

through an ‘Across the World’ series, in which I aimed to point to similarities and differences

between the Chinese contexts and the US. This intercultural exchange will make for my lessons

to more engaging to students, since they are able to learn about English while also preforming

this cultural exchange within the classroom.

During this materials development, I also began to be “very sensitive to the students’

need to practice freely and openly” while stressing pronunciation work (Brown & Lee 142).

This, opposed to the strict guidelines that I may face in terms of content which I must cover, I

began to provide students with time and opportunity to discuss freely within my lessons, thereby

establishing self-regulation, autonomy and agency by encouraging language creativity. Though

this was especially hard to conceptualize incorporating into my materials development seeing as

students should be learning pretty substantial and complicated vocabulary lists for the Gaokao.

These lists are likely those that encourage the set memorization of vocabulary within a set

context, but I still made time within my lessons for students to have this level of autonomy and
understanding of the word beyond those set guidelines/rules, so that students are able to

independently use their learned words as a fluent speaker might. This time took the form of pair-

work for conversations, worksheets which encouraged the creation of sentences individually,

among other activities.

With this materials development, it was also very difficult to conceptualize how long my

lesson activities would feasibly take. At times, when I reflected on my limited in-classroom

student experience, I sometimes felt the time I set for some activities may be too long, and some

times set for activities too short. Though I feel like I will definitely become better at estimating

these times as I gain more experience with English teaching, for this materials development, I

was able to overcome this obstacle by being more flexible and instead use ranges of time, where

I could give myself a buffer between activities in case an activity goes on for too long. I also

began creating a backup activity for each lesson, in case a lesson runs early, that way I can

mitigate any potential obstacle in terms of time as I go into in-person teaching.

In regard to time, I've also realized that it is important to devote a specific class time for

vocabulary learning, like it is recommended in the Teaching By Principles book, as well as time

introducing the topic of each lesson (Brown & Lee, 481). This vocabulary time should be done

by helping students to learn vocabulary in context, so that context clues are available to them and

they are able to connect meaning to ideas (Brown & Lee, 481). This aspect, though simple,

particularly evaded me in designing my materials. I think this was a challenge for me because in

some of my past language learning, vocabulary and introductions were often dry and anxiety

inducing for me as a student. However, instead of memorizing long lists of vocabulary without

much thought, or giving a small, dry introduction to each the lesson, I knew I needed to instead
incorporate multimedia to introduce both of these simultaneously, to invite students to see the

natural contexts of these words while also helping pupils gauge what the lesson will be about.

Another big obstacle for me in terms of materials development was conceptualizing if, in

theory, my lessons would work out in real life within my Chinese speaking populations. This led

to me reflecting on what type of teacher I wanted to become, and how I could do this in the

language classroom. I reflected on the fact that I should "make sure [my] style of teaching is also

consistent with the rest of [me] and with the way [I] feel you can be most genuine in the

classroom" (Brown & Lee, p.305). As I designed materials, I made sure to reflect on this. I asked

myself the ways in which my activities and methods were being genuine to my teaching style, or

if some activities required that I fake a certain persona. I asked myself constantly what types of

populations I wanted to represent in my lesson plans, and whether my overarching goal of

representing the US as a diverse place was being achieved.

Throughout this process I did change and alter many activities, because I knew some of

my activities were not truly reflective of my goals with these students as a teaching professional,

especially in terms of the diversity I wanted to convey and how I wanted to teach my future

pupils. Thus, I began to create a personal flare to my activities, which would allow my continued

participation in activities, create a more open dialogue with the students and display my personal

heritage. In some lessons, I incorporated more information about Hispanic dialects, one major

example being an activity having to do with discussing ‘Coco’, the Disney movie centering

around the Mexican traditions of Dia De Los Muertos. This Disney movie in many ways talks

about cultural norms in the Latinx communities and not only gives me the opportunity to talk to

my own cultural experience during my lesson, but also give me the opportunity to talk about the

diversity found all over the US with Latinx peoples. I found myself weaving these types of
activities into my lessons, where I felt more comfortable that throughout my materials

development, I was being true to myself, both in teaching and as an individual.

Beyond the lessons I learned in-class and with my materials development, I have also

grown as a teaching professional, where my aim is not only for my students to learn, but for me

to continue my TESOL learning throughout my career as well. This TESOL practicum has

taught me the importance of learning through 'communities of practice' which describes

"teachers of varying degrees of experience [carrying] out their roles as practicing professionals

who learn from each other" (Brown & Lee, p.541). Just as I was able to receive advice from my

professor, another experienced teaching professional, it will become important to form a

community of teachers within my school or teaching context in the future, to help improve and

inform my teaching as I go into the TESOL field. This community of support will help me

manage my potential stress factors to maintain myself "fresh, creative, bright and happy" for my

students (Brown & Lee, p.544). Most importantly, I should keep in mind that my major goal,

above all else, is to continue being a 'transformative reflectivist'. This meaning that I should

continually strive to engage "in critical reflection of [my] own practice..with the explicit desire

for, commitment toward, and purpose of transforming [my] thoughts and practices" (Brown &

Lee p. 570). I plan to keep making sure I reflect on my successes and challenges in the classroom

to make sure I am continually growing and learning as a teaching professional, not remaining

stagnant with the same old habits and activities. I hope to be a lifelong learner in TESOL and

plan to continue my work as a teaching professional.

 Works Cited

Brown, H. D., & Lee, H. (2015). Teaching By Principles: An Interactive Approach to Language

Pedagogy. White Plains, New York: Pearson.