Alyson's Teaching Portfolio


M.A. TESL Program Objectives

The MA TESL program at Penn State has seven learning objectives:

  • the ability to design and evaluate instructional materials, technology, media, and other resources that meet the specific instructional and language related needs and abilities of students
              - In addition to the materials uploaded to the Teaching Materials and Teaching with Technology sections of this site,                     I'd like to include some other evidence of meeting this goal through the courses I've taken here at Penn State.  The                     first document is from the Introduction to TESL course I took in my first semester in the MA program.  For the final                 project in this course, I created a syllabus, lesson plans, and materials for an imagined course.  Below is the                                     document.
syllabus.doc
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Picture
           - In the course Technology in Foreign Language Education, a                 classmate and I completed a project in which we used                                 technology to create an assignment for an imagined L2 class.                  We imagined a communicative class for advanced ESL students,             and decided to incorporate culture (here, the history of St.                     Patrick's day) in order to have students practice listening and                 speaking via a type of technology known as VoiceThread.  To                 the right is a screen capture of the assignment in VoiceThread,             and below is the write-up we did about the assignment.

apling_589_project_1.docx
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  • the ability to reflect on, critically analyze, and evaluate your own teaching practices 
              - Reflection is a critical part of improving as a teacher.  I have engaged in several reflections on teaching and                                 learning.  The first is from my first experience teaching in a classroom setting--team-teaching as a part of the                                 Introduction to TESL class.  Along with three classmates, I observed a low-intermediate speaking class.  Then, we                     developed a lesson about giving compliments.  We practiced teaching this lesson in front of our classmates and                             received feedback.  The next week, we taught the lesson to the actual ESL class, and later participated in a stimulated                 recall of the teaching.  Below is my reflection on the process.
teamteachingreflection.doc
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               - Next is a reflection from my tutoring experiences as part of the course Teaching American English Pronunciation.                   Over the course of the semester (again my first semester in the program), I tutored a first-year graduate student                          from Korea.  At the end of the semester, I compiled information about the tutee, a lesson plan I'd used with him, my                  evaluations of the success of the lesson, and my reflections on tutoring.  Below is this file.
410_final_paper.doc
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               - During my second semester, I took a course called Teaching Second Language Writing.  In this class we discussed                      and analyzed different theories for teaching L2 writing.  I benefited not only from the textbooks, but also from                              hearing the different experiences of some of my classmates who had taught or were teaching writing courses.  Below                  is my final reflection on what I learned during the course.
alyson_412_final_reflection.doc
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  • the ability to articulate a philosophy of language teaching grounded in current language and learning theories
                - My Teaching Philosophy is a reflection of the current L2 learning theories that are central to my teaching, what is                   important to me as a teacher, and how this is acted out in the classroom.

  • an understanding of the complex social, cultural, political, and institutional factors that affect language teaching and students' language learning
               - I learned a lot about social and institutional factors that affect teaching and learning in a course called Teaching                         College.  In this course, we examined some social and psychological factors affecting college students, examined                         effective teaching practices, and learned about designing course material within institutional/departmental                                 requirements.  Below is the final inquiry project I completed for this course, in which I analyzed how teachers                             provide grammatical feedback for ESL students.
grammatical_feedback.doc
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               - In the course Introduction to Applied Linguistics, we reviewed and discussed many social, cultural, and political                      factors surrounding L2 teaching and learning.  In the final paper below, I examined the connection between thought                 and language, and whether the potential exists for one to change his or her way of thinking when speaking in another                 language.
linguistic_relativity.docx
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  • knowledge of research and research methods for studying language teaching and learning
                - Conversation Analysis (CA) is a research method I learned for analyzing utterances.  CA provides a close-up,                                in-depth look at the nuances of a conversation.  In the CA course I took, the final project was a group project in                            which we used CA to transcribe and examine a video recording of a classroom setting.
final_paper586h.docx
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  • knowledge of the teaching field (English)
                Being a native speaker of English, I have a clear command of using the language.  However, being a native speaker                     does not necessarily mean I understand how the language works or how to teach it to others.  This is why it is so                         important for me to study how grammar and pragmatics are learned, how they are different from other cultures, and                 how to best teach them to second language learners.  This is why I came to Penn State to study and get a degree in                     TESL.  The courses here prepare us to teach ESL, some explicitly (like Introduction to TESL and Teaching American                 English Pronunciation), and others implicitly (like Introduction to Applied Linguistics and Conversation Analysis). 

              -  One of the courses I took that directly addressed grammar was called Discourse Functional Grammar.  One of the                     projects for this course included developing a set of different activities based on the same topic.  The topic I chose                     was questions, so all of the activities I describe are different ways to teach question form, meaning, or use to ESL                         students.  Below is the document.  
esl_question_activities.doc
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                - In Teaching American English Pronunciation, I also practiced using IPA transcription.  IPA is important in                                 understanding how words are pronounced, and being able to explain any variations to learners.  The more I                                 understand the location and manner in which a sound is produced, the better I can explain it to an English language                 learner.  Below is a homework assignment in which we identified and transcribed various sounds in English.
410_hw1.doc
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               - Another aspect of the field of teaching ESL is assessment.  Assessment is not something I had at first considered                         when I began to study TESL.  However, it is important to understand how assessment works not only within the                         classroom, but also at a program/department level, and at the institutional level.  In my second semester, I took a                     course entitled Methods of Assessment, in which we studied various methods of L2 assessment used by teachers,                         departments, universities, and beyond.  Below is one of the assignments for this course, in which we examined an L2                 test based on different criteria. 
583_assign_12.doc
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  • participation in collaborative projects with others
              While here at Penn State, I have often participated in group projects.  In my Second Language Acquisition (SLA)                          course, I worked with three other group members to teach a group of theories in SLA to the class.  Our topic was               "SLA-in-the-Head", which dealt with concepts like the Interaction Hypothesis, Negotiation for Meaning, Fossilization,               and Interlanguage.  Here's the PPT we presented on the first of our three days of teaching:
sla_day_1.pptx
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