Internship Experience for an ESL Teacher Essay

As a foreign student with a degree in Informatics and Library and currently pursuing a master’s degree at the University of Pennsylvania in Adult and Community Education Program, I have a vision of teaching English as a second language in Saudi Arabia. To this effect, I have been on an internship project at the Communications Media department at the same university between January and March this year. The main purpose for the internship was to give me an exposure to the kind of environment I will find myself working in as an ESL teacher. ESL is a course that is offered to people who wish to learn English as a second language. Thesis Statement For my internship, I was attached at the Communication Department at the University of Pennsylvania where my duties included but were but not limited to coordinating activities between students taking English as a Second Language (ESL) and conversation partners at the American Language Institute. Also in the line of my duty was the task of overseeing how the two groups have been progressing together. The internship was time well spent and it played a very important role in familiarising me with the classroom set up at an ESL teaching centre. I also had the opportunity to learn much about the job and what it entails as well as the kind of challenges that I may encounter in the course of my career. Taking my internship course at University of Pennsylvania was the most convenient choice that I made. The communications Media Department where I was attached is right on the campus and I was therefore able to operate from my residence without any hustles of commuting from one place to another. It was also convenient in that I was able to coordinate between my classes at the Adult Community Program centre and the training on the internship. The convenience made life a little more comfortable for me because of reduced costs of transport. The internship kept me in good relations with the law because being in one place helped me avoid any instances of breaking immigration rules set for foreign students. The convenience of having all my activities centralised on Campus has played well in helping me to develop my social skills. This is because it has been easy to have extra interaction with some of the students when the opportunity allowed and as a teacher, this was very helpful in that I could closely get to know more about the challenges that ESL students face in their social life as foreign students. Since we were all from different social backgrounds, the interaction helped to improve my social relations with others considering the diversity of culture represented in the ESL class. A close bond between teacher and student is very important as it helps students to learn better and also helps the teacher to improve their skills. Knowing students a little bit more beyond the classroom set up is very important for teacher-student relations. Interaction with the volunteers from the American Language Institute helped me learn more about American society. With these two groups, I was able to share my challenges as a foreign student in America and also listen to theirs and suggest possible solutions. This helped learning easier and more interesting for the students. The sole purpose of learning an extra language is to aid the learner in communicating easily through the desired language. Despite the fact that I speak the English language, the experience I got from the internship greatly helped to improve my skills in conversing with others. The interaction I had with the students as well as the volunteers in the ESL learning programme exposed me to those who were learning and others who were there to assist in learning. It was a learning experience for me as I was able to improve on my fluency and using correct grammar when conversing in the English language. By identifying the students’ challenges in learning to converse in English, I was able to polish my own language especially in using of proper tenses, right statements and remarks. The ESL program brings together people from different cultural backgrounds. Students come here with the aim of learning English that will help them to adapt to their new environment and they are helped through this process by communication partners. Through interaction with this group at the ESL program, I got exposed to a diversity of cultures and it was interesting to get to learn about different cultures and practises of the world. It is interesting to note how the world can meet in such a small set up as a classroom. This knowledge is very important for me in my pursuit of a career in ESL teaching as it will help me adopt to any new culture that I may be exposed to. Objectives were set to enable me achieve the goals of the internship. They were supposed to guide me in carrying out activities that internship period. This would enable me acquire knowledge and skills that are required for one to become an effective ESL student’s teacher. The experience would give me an opportunity to give my suggestions and ideas in order to improve students teaching techniques and materials. In this essay, there will be a reflection on the meaning of the internship experience for my intellectual development and career planning. The internship experience was necessary in equipping me with new learning. It would offer me knowledge and skills required in future teaching work with the language students. Suggestions and ideas that can improve teaching techniques and materials for the students would contribute in achieving my new learning objective. Engaging volunteers achieved this in sessions on curriculum and teaching methods, recommending improvements in class handling discussing organizational concerns with volunteers, drafting lesson plans and evaluating them and discussing educational techniques with volunteers. My objective to teach volunteers on how to interact with English was achieved by carrying out the following activities; directing English lessons in the classroom, engaging the volunteers on curriculum and teaching methods, evaluating their performances and recommending necessary changes in class. The assignments that were offered to the students is a sure evidence that this objective was attained. Creating organizational system to allow educators to organize volunteer schedules and paper work effectively was enhanced by meeting and discussing organizational concerns with the volunteers, organizing schedules to avoid confusion, handling volunteer and class paper work and documentation as well as getting program feedback from the student Creating lesson plans for the volunteer teachers was achieved by; drafting lesson plans for teaching, adapting the teachers according to the class needs, discussing the quality of lesson plans and suggesting their changes, incorporating volunteer opinions in final lesson plans and finally implementing the lesson plan. I managed to work with the students and volunteers of presentation materials, decided upon educational techniques and ensured students follow guidelines in presentation. This assisted me in acquiring skills in creating presentation materials. As a teacher, I accommodated a certain number of students when my time allowed, graded and encouraged students and understanding the students’ need. The current challenges and problems in the classroom were discussed with fellow teachers. This in turn, ensured the students were taught as require by the instruction formal program. Additionally, experience at the ESL classes helped me to learn about other methods used in communicating apart from mouth language. These other methods are important in that as a teacher, knowledge of different methods of communication helps one to assess whether you are communicating fully or as desired by the students. Such methods include but are not limited to using parts of the body to express ourselves or gesturing and also the use of facial expressions. It was interesting to learn that a lot of communication can take place through non-verbal methods. At the end of the internship, I had developed a lot of confidence in conversing with students, being able to interact freely and easily with them as well as understanding diverse cultures and the styles they used to converse non-verbally in the different cultures. My internship was even more helpful as a master’s student in the Adult Education and Community programme. There was much more to learn from the experience at the ESL classes than I had earlier imagined. Interacting with students and volunteers from different cultures of the world helped me to grow as a person as well as to acquire intellectual improvement. I got exposed to diversity of cultures at very close range, something I had not encountered before and after such an experience, it becomes easy to be able to teach English anywhere in the world. This is because of the ability that I have gained to assess student issues anywhere. The ESL students mostly constitute of foreigners who wish to learn English so that they can be able to adapt to their new environments. Such students obviously encounter several challenges in the process of their resettlement and my experience with them enlightened me on ways in which I can be able to evaluate and understand their problems and the approach I can take in helping them to settle such problems. The ESL classes also constitute of people of different ages and as a future adult teacher, the internship has offered me great help in best ways of handling adults at different age categories. It is now easy to identify with their emotions and to know how well to help them cope with learning. Through this experience, I have realised that my own problems as a foreign student were not unique and that I have a lot to share in common with other foreigners that I shall encounter in the course of my career. I now have a burden to offer as much help as I can to make learning comfortable for foreigners. It made me feel even luckier that I could speak the language myself and made me realise that it was easier for me to adapt to my environment than those that cannot speak the language. Internship enriched me with methods of teaching that can be highly effective such as creating the right atmosphere for free teacher and student interaction and getting the students to give feedback on the way that they are fairing in their learning process. I learnt the essentiality of making the environment conducive for the students as it makes learning easier for them. Students can only learn successfully if several of these factors are pooled together. The internship was a good ground to put into practice what I had learnt from my course work.. Getting the chance to utilise my knowledge created a feeling of confidence in me as well as helped me to rectify and improve on areas that appeared weak. It is now possible for me to be able to come up with new ideas that can be applied in the ESL teaching program. This internship has surely given me the right exposure for my future career. Teaching at an ESL class is no longer a new encounter for me and I can affirm the fact that it is only through practice that one is able to assess whether you are ripe for a career. The challenges encountered in an ESL program set up are no longer strange to me. The internship has given me good experience in handling adults in a classroom set up and has helped to build confidence in me as an adult teacher. I believe this experience will assist me a great deal in planning and writing my thesis for the course that I am undertaking. Knowledge is only useful if it is put into practice. The internship offered me an opportunity to put into practice a lot of knowledge both academic and otherwise and gave me good direction on best ways of detecting, identifying and getting solutions to any challenges that may cross my path in the course of my career as an ESL teacher. By offering my own suggestions and contributing ideas on how teaching at ESL classes can be improved, my own personal growth in the career is advancing. I now have the confidence to handle adults in a learning environment and to be able to identify with their emotions, weaknesses, likes and dislikes and to handle such factors without interfering with the learning process. The students were taken out to become conversant with various aspects of the country. Supplementation of students’ knowledge on English by informally speaking with them aided their learning on the English language. On the other hand, not all objectives were achieved fully. There were several problems and challenges that made the achievement of these objectives difficult. The problems that were experienced included; volunteer delayed easy interaction with the students, and volunteers could not identify and understand concerns of all students fully. Though it took some time before they interacted easily with the students, they later managed to do it. There were few communication and organization problems that arose but were sorted out with time. It was also a bit difficult to develop lesson plans containing all relevant information for the course at one particular time. This experience assisted me to improve my conversation skills. This was due to the interaction with both the volunteers and the students. During this interaction conversations between me and then assisted me to gain fluency and correct grammar when conversing. The use of correct tenses, remarks and statements in order to pass the necessary language enabled me to identify their needs in their classes. Conclusion Internship has proved to be a very helpful undertaking and I would recommend it to anyone that wishes to develop and pursue a successful career. It offers a good opportunity to learn so much about the pros and cons of a job. From the experience that I have had at the internship, I believe that I have fewer challenges to face in my future career as an ESL teacher in Saudi Arabia. This is because the internship has prepared me on almost every aspect of human interaction is it personal, social or cultural that I need in my career. The exposure to people from different social backgrounds and different cultures will serve to help me adapt to new cultural backgrounds as it gives the right psychological preparation for such an encounter. The ESL class encounter will help me to adapt in a situation where I may find myself learning a new language. The whole experience was worth the time and effort. References Dolores, La Guardia. , Guth P. H. , (2000). American Voices. Culture and Community. Toronto, Mayfield Publishers.