Yueren Chen-Sally

Dr. Sarah Arva Grosik

EDUC 8215/003 TESOL Practice Teaching

CBLP Reflection Blog #5

Nov 19, 2023

CBLP Reflection Blog #5

This Thursday, Peilin and I finished our 10th lesson, which focused on the theme of health

facilities in the U.S. and the sequence of making doctor’s appointments. Here, I would like to

include a Google Doc link to what we have sorted out (a compilation of edited review sheets on

daily conversational topics) so far:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1h1g_wD9J2KSE2qtMdrEZDvlDtQXYRppLEByhRtW4az

4/edit?usp=sharing. I am thinking of maybe supplementing each topic with more authentic

dialogues that students can refer to and practice at their wish. Please feel free to leave comments

and give us feedback. Thank you!

Talking about service learning, I have honestly experienced some evolving feelings

regarding our engagement within the community at our site. During the first few weeks of our

teaching, I felt a little dismayed and even questioned whether the site, the site supervisor, and the

managers recognized Peilin and me (and of course, our effort) as part of the community. I used to

be fraught with frustration and disappointment, having concerns revolving around my mind: Is it

because we are young, unprofessional graduate student-teachers who serve the site voluntarily

that they don’t have to take us seriously? How can I develop a sense of belonging when the site

supervisor is not even responsive? Why would students keep asking us to translate everything
into Mandarin instead of showing at least some respect by resonating with our teaching

philosophy which we cling to (i.e., communicative language teaching)?

Thanks to what we have covered and talked about in class, what is included in the

readings, and some inspirations from my families as well (I always ask for my dad’s personal

advice about dealing with people in my work haha), I grow better at understanding my site and

my students (even though it is still far from enough). What I want to highlight here is the concept

of “ways of knowing” (mentioned in Cress et al. (2013)), namely, being conscious about our own

learning and research styles and understanding how that differ from others/our students or co-

teachers. For example, an appreciation by us of the communicative learning approach may not be

equally worshipped by our students, who grew up in an era when the grammar-translation

approach took the lead. Similarly, my dad has always asked me to be mindful and think broader

and deeper, when misunderstandings occur, about others’ individual backgrounds and social

surroundings before making biased, prejudiced judgments. And I gradually learn to put myself in

others’ shoes and be open to negotiations.