turnabout

[rosasericea]

I applied to an MEd in ESL at one of our state universities a few weeks ago, when I was wrangling my various certifications and figuring out what to do with my teaching life. I meet the requirements for a provisional ESL certificate here, but the master's would allow me to teach it anywhere. Teaching ESL in the K-12 world means getting to work in an array of content areas, with a range of age groups...I wasn't expecting to be admitted, but I got my informal acceptance notice today, and I'm super excited! Linguistics and teaching--yay! Of course, now I have to do the financial aid/scholarship scramble for the next few months to figure out how I'm going to fund this adventure. That's OK--I'm thrilled to be going back to grad school sooner than I thought.

I'm still taking my literature classes in the spring term. I'm really looking forward to them, and it'll be a fun way to get myself back into the swing of studying and writing regularly. And if I decide to go the comparative lit route later on, those connections could still help. 2019 is looking better and better. I'm excited to study English again, both literature and language. Hooray! I'm also turning over languages in my head, trying to decide which one I want to focus on. I already speak and read Spanish passably well. The contenders are French, German and Japanese. I have solid reasons to study each of them, but I can only pursue one foreign-to-me language at a time (past experience says I just can't juggle more than one). HMM.

Jeffrey and I are heading out to see a performance of The Nutcracker in a few minutes. It's been a good day.

Comments

[gwydion]

I loved teaching ESL in places they let us do it properly. (Watch out for districts that force you to teach to a script. I forget what the system was called but it was soul sucking for everyone involved). You'll find that half the folks in most ESL programs are teach abroad folks who have a whole other outlook than folks who are expecting to teach kids here many of whom have been through some serious shit depending on what their parents were fleeing.

I loved doing it and the classwork for getting the cert was almost all useful unlike some of the stuff they cram into M.ed programs.

I wish you the very best of luck.

[angelofthenorth]

Congratulations

[rosasericea]

Yeah, I'm familiar with the scripted approach and it's terrible. I've worked with kids and adults who've come here as refugees (or whose parents did) and they definitely have been through some THINGS. It is a very different perspective, and I'm looking forward to learning about teaching abroad, as well, as that's something I've always wondered about doing.

Agreed--most of what's required for me looks very useful and almost all of it is High Interest. Other MEd tracks were a little sparse on the practical stuff and seemed very padded with material that sounds impressive but isn't very useful, even for someone going a more academic or administrative route.

Glad to hear yours went well, and thank you!

[rosasericea]

Thank you :)