Christina Mancini Reflection 1

When I enrolled in this class, I did not realize that the entire class was built around how to teach ESL or EFL students. As we dive further into the topics of the class, I realize more and more how important/ useful this class will be to me in my future. I am planning to teach in the United States, where most of the children I teach may have English as their first language, but obviously I will also have to teach a major percentage of students who are not native speakers, as well as non-native students who have special needs. I’m embarrassed to admit that I had never thought about how specific training and skills should be used to teach ESL students; I am so thankful for the techniques that LLT 307 has already given me. The communicative approach is one skill that I found very interesting to learn about. This approach covers so many different vital skills that a students must learn, in order to understand/ be able to communicate in a new language.  Old traditional techniques were used on my to learn Spanish throughout my education, but they did not cover all aspects of the language that are vital to become fluent.

Reflecting back on my own education, I like to compare my high school Spanish class against the new skills I’ve been learning in class. I took Spanish for 3 years, but cannot communicate at all to someone who speaks Spanish fluently. I was very discouraged after taking Spanish; after that, I always figured that I am just a poor learner when it comes to speaking another language. Then I also thought how my school had a very low rate of children who would continue past Spanish 4; so I wasn’t the only one having difficulties! The lessons in class have helped me realize that I only learned Spanish from a grammatical standpoint. I would learn and memorize the vocabulary in order to pass the tests, but never applied the vocabulary to real life, so I easily forgot them after the class. Over the course of the semester, I will be exposed to many different teaching ideas that will help me prevent a poor L2 education, like my own.

In the future I want to teach in a special education classroom and help children who struggle in school, not only with content, but with the English language.  I am so happy that LLT has opened my eyes to consider why and how I will teach ESL students English. What I look forward to most about LLT, is learning effective ways to teach English, as well as, learn to think from a different perspective/ be more sensitive to students who are non-native English speakers.  

Christina Mancini