WELCOME TO
M Y L I F E
photo by Gillian Smit
Hello everyone, it’s been a while! I can’t believe it’s already been three months since I came back from France. I thought I would give a recap of what an awesome summer I had! This was my first summer spent in Long Beach. Before, I had always gone home to Sacramento for the summer to work at a movie theatre. But this summer, I was only home for a week when I got back from France before heading back down to my apartment to do TEFL training. If you’re not familiar with it, TEFL stands for Teaching English as a Foreign Language. It is related to ESL (Teaching English as a Second Language) and TESOL (Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages). The course I took was a six week 160 hour in person certification program for teaching English abroad. It was split into units of Teaching/Learning, Listening/Speaking, Reading/Writing, Grammar, Testing, and Culture. We learned about teaching methods for each skill, planned our own lessons, and taught them to ESL students. Afterward, we got feedback from our instructors and reflected on our performance and what we could do to improve in the future. It was an amazing experience, and I am so, SO glad I chose to do in person training instead of an online course. I still feel very nervous about teaching my own English class, but the experience I got with ESL students was so valuable because it showed me that I’m capable of running a classroom to some degree. Although it’s going to be scary, I’m excited to fulfill my dream of teaching abroad after I graduate! Incase anyone was interested, here is the link to the teaching portfolio I made as part of the course: http://www.maylinguida.weebly.com What I learned in TEFL training fits really nicely with what I’ve been studying in my English and Linguistics classes and what I’m going to be doing in my writing tutoring job next semester. Which brings us to our next summer highlight: I interviewed for and got the writing tutoring job I’ve had my eye on since freshman year! Writing has always been something that came naturally to me, and I’ve enjoyed doing informal tutoring in my English classes in college. I knew this job would be perfect for me, and it lines up really well with my career goals. The interview was a little scary--there were three interviewers and three of us interviewees. They asked us about what qualities we had that would make us a good tutor and previous experience, how we had dealt with problems in previous employment, and gave us some tutoring scenarios to respond to, including reading a paper and explaining the response we would give to a student. I wasn’t sure what my chances were because I didn’t have any previous formal tutoring experience and I was only a senior, not a grad student, but I got it! I think talking about my TEFL experience helped a lot. I already had training, and I start work the first week of school. This is the first job I’ve had that I’ve truly been excited about, and it’s an amazing feeling. I know it’s going to be difficult working during the semester (I’ve only done it once before, and I quit before finals), but I’m determined to keep this job for the whole year. My course load is a little lighter this year, so that should help. Other cool stuff that happened this summer: I watched seasons 1-4 of Gilmore Girls on Netflix. I LOVE this show. I don’t usually have time to watch TV during the semesters, but hopefully I can finish it over Christmas break or next summer! I continued volunteering in conversation lab (one-on-one or small group informal conversation practice for the ESL students we taught) after TEFL was over. We had done hours during the program, but I decided to continue with it because I wasn’t doing anything else! I found it really challenging and awkward because I’m not particularly good at keeping conversations going, but it was a great experience and I had fun learning about the students and their home countries and cultures. I took a lot of walks around my neighborhood and explored new routes from the usual loop I did last fall. There are so many pretty areas! I went home in July for my high school friend’s wedding and got to see some old friends! My parents were hosting a French exchange student, and we took him to the State Fair while I was home. I went to Barnes and Noble and read for hours, something I had always dreamed of doing but never had the time to do. I walked to Belmont Shore beach from my apartment and walked all the way to downtown along the walking path by the ocean. It was about five miles, and my feet felt like they were going to fall off by the end of it, but it was so worth it! I went through my closet in my apartment and my closet at home and got rid of a TON of clothes. I had been holding onto so many pieces from high school/freshman year of college that I kept thinking I might wear again someday but never wore! It felt so good to do such a thorough clean-out of my clothes. I bought some new items to replace old ones, but not nearly as many as I got rid of. Now my wardrobe is smaller, and full of things I actually wear on a regular basis! I went home again for my birthday and had a joint celebration with my childhood friend, whose birthday is also in August. We went to Casablanca, a Moroccan restaurant, for her birthday dinner (AMAZING food--actually better than the food I had when I was in Morocco) and Chevy’s for mine. We watched old funny videos of the two of us when we were younger, had a Mamma Mia marathon, played games, and did some shopping. For the rest of my time at home, I relaxed and spent time with my parents. Next week, I start my last first week of school! It’s so weird to think that this is my last year of school. I’ll still have more or less the same structure to my years when I’m a teacher, but I won’t be a student anymore (until grad school which, if I decide to go, won’t be for a while). I’m going to be super busy and stressed, but I am determined to make this year awesome. Let’s do this!
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AuthorHey guys, it's May! I hope you'll join me as I document my semester abroad. Archives
May 2020
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