Somehow it's Finals Week?!

So I know I say this a lot, but WOW time is flying! It's already finals week! How did that happen?!?!

They say time flies when you're having fun, but it also definitely flies when you are busy, busy, busy! Which is what I have been lately. After the Big Island and the Big Engagement, things kicked into high gear here at HPU for just about everyone.

• I turned in my portfolio! Once it gets approved I can share it here with you all, but in the meantime suffice it to say that it is a HUGE relief to say I am finished. It was a great opportunity to reflect on the things I've learned and done in the past two years and how far I have come. I've grown a lot since coming here!
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  Me, working on my portfolio all semester.

• We did mini-lessons in Second Language Writing. Mini-lessons are always fun, because our classmates get to practice being teachers and we get to pretend to be students. For some reason, we all get a kick out of pretending we don't know how to properly conjugate and punctuate. That said, we had to record a video of the teaching and then reflect on it, and there is pretty much NOTHING more awkward than watching yourself on video, am I right?
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  Everyone ever upon seeing themselves on video.

• The Spring 2015 Capstone Symposium had a FANTASTIC crew from the TESOL program (both undergrad and grad) and we even won some very fancy prizes! A whole bunch of the undergrads did a poster session, one of them did an oral presentation, and two of the grads (including me) did oral presentations. It was a little nerve-wracking, since we had to talk for 20 minutes... but I was talking about Catalan in education and I could talk forever about that, so it was a great experience. And hey - I got 2nd place! There are no photos of me presenting (somewhere the is a photo of me post-presentation floating around, but I don't know where), but I did snag this one off Facebook of the undergrad crew who represented us! 
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  Don't they look smart?!

• Speaking of presentations, we all presented in History of the English language. I chose to talk about English in Ireland, in honor of my Irish heritage. Let me tell you, Irish history is COMPLEX. But very interesting, and I learned a lot! If anyone wants to send me to Ireland to do some more research, I'm totally amenable to that idea....
• We had a fabulous AL Talk from Ted Rodgers, a big name in the TESOL world who actually works here in Hawaii at UH. He is friends with some of our professors, so they got him to come and chat with us. He is hilarious. I wish I could learn English from him! He gave us so many fun activities to use, like songs and chants and other silly things that make English fun. (Isn't English always fun?!)
• I finished my student teaching!! As I've said before, I was lucky enough to do my student teaching in two classes this semester, SPAN 1100 and WRI 1100. I spent the majority of the semester with the writing class, and they were awesome. I was really, really fortunate to have a SUPER cool mentor teaching in Barbara Hannum, who gave me free rein to try out all kinds of teaching activities. Some were more successful than others, of course, but I learned from all of it. And I had a great group of students to be patient with me along the way! I'll miss them, I have to admit. I'm wishing them all luck on their exam on Friday!
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  My fantastic class :)

• We practiced our capstone presentations last Friday night. Being Capstone buddies is a real experience, I'm telling you. There is such a feeling of camaraderie in going through the final semester together. I have to cut one minute from my presentation. The Big Event is this Friday!
• And now here we are in the midst of finals week! I've turned in one take-home final, submitted my portfolio, and sent in all my student teaching materials. All that's left is my History of English final tomorrow night and the Capstone Event on Friday and then it's OVER.

Hard to believe my two years here is just a few days from ending. I am so, so grateful for the opportunities and experiences I've had here at HPU. I will miss my classmates and teachers so much! I'll post again after the Capstone Event. If you are in Hawaii and interested in attending, it's May 8 at 3:00 PM here on campus!  

Oh, and outside of school, I went to a BALL! My fiancé's battalion ball, to be exact. I felt like a princess in my fancy dress and it was so fun to hang out with our friends and get all dressed up and dance :) 

I think we clean up pretty well ;)

Well, that's it for now, folks! Off to study for my History of English exam... wish me luck!

Spring Semester Update

Whew, what a busy time! If you took a look at my April calendar right now, you'd probably cry. I know I want to! Spring semester is rapidly coming to a close, so here's a peek at some of the things that have been going on here at HPU.

Student teaching is almost over! I only have one more class to teach to complete my hours. It has been such a wonderful experience, honestly -- such a valuable part of the TESOL program here! I have been incredibly lucky to have not one but two wonderful mentor teachers this semester in Spanish and in Writing. Getting to see a beginning language class and a second language writing class has given me two really different perspectives and experiences and I have learned so, so much. Getting to practice being in front of a whole class has made me feel a lot more comfortable teaching, and I'm starting to get the hang of this whole lesson planning thing, maybe! Obviously, I still make mistakes, but that's what feedback and practice are for, right? I feel much better about teaching next year after this semester of practicum.

Basically what people think about teaching.

My portfolio is coming along as well! There are only 2 pieces of it I haven't started yet, and I plan to knock at least one of those out tonight! Everything else has been drafted and revised at least once, and several bits have been approved. Monday the 20th is the final deadline, so things are getting intense! This weekend, that's pretty much the only thing I'll be doing. It'll all be online once I'm finished, so I'll be sure to share the link here! (Now that I wrote this whole paragraph I am looking at my calendar and thinking SIX DAYS?!?!??!)

Who's starting to feel the pressure?!

 I've also been accepted to present at the Capstone Symposium on the 23rd, which is exciting! Students from a bunch of different departments are getting together to present posters or oral presentations on something they've worked on. I chose (of course!) my paper on language policy in Catalonia. Quite a few of my fellow tutors are presenting as well, so I can't wait to see what they'll have to say. If you're around on April 23, be sure to check it out!

My other two classes, Teaching Second Language Writing and History of the English Language, are going well! We have a big research paper in HoE coming up, so I checked out half the library yesterday in anticipation. I'm writing about the fate of the Celtic languages in the UK... I think it'll be pretty interesting! Certainly it'll get me pumped up to visit Ireland next spring!

In the meantime, I'm working on my Andorra paperwork. I need to book my flight in the next week or so, which will make it seem a little more real!

Hard to believe that just a month from today, I'll be walking across the stage at graduation. Right now, it seems like there is an awful lot left to do!! Deep breath. It'll all get done, right? And in just five weeks, I'll be landing in Maryland and my Hawaii adventure will be over. Speaking of which... I have a few more Hawaii Bucket List things to post about, so keep an eye out for those!

How is it Spring Break already?!?!

Oops... It's been a while, hasn't it? Things have gotten pretty busy the last few weeks! I can't believe we are already halfway through the semester! (Or halfway through Spring Break... how sad, right?)

School has been really busy, with our first History of English exam, some writing assignments, more student teaching, another AL Talk, and another portfolio deadline. Work has gotten busy too, since tutoring is always busy when school is! 

Sara and I (yes we have the same name) at our AL Talk on February 27th.

I've officially switched over to student teaching in WRI 1100, which is a very different experience from SPAN 1100! In Spanish, I was teaching things like "Hello, my name is..." But in writing it's more like "What is a counterargument?" It's cool to get both experiences! I have to say, having a mother who's a teacher is immensely helpful. It's so nice knowing I can call her anytime with questions or even just to say "Mom, it gets easier, right?" after a lesson that doesn't go perfectly. (She says it does, sort of.) 

I've learned about all sorts of things that can make a lesson not go perfectly... which I suppose is the point, right? Now I know, for example, that if you have an activity that is based on groups passing something to other groups, you had better set up an official passing route, or chaos will ensue... Oops. I've also learned that the Weasley family isn't the best option for teaching family relationships because there are too many of them. Duly noted... And I'm still working on how to time my lessons well. I always seem to end up with too many activities, but I suppose that's better than too few, right? 

All TESOL students have the same favorite color.

I've turned in a draft of almost all of my portfolio at this point, with the exception of my Practicum II materials and my holistic reflection. It's quite the feeling of accomplishment! It's hard to believe I only have 7 more weeks of class, EVER. (Unless I decide to do my PhD some day down the road!) Although I guess as a teacher, you're never really finished with class, are you?

Being a last semester student, lots of people are starting to ask me, "What's next?" Well, trust me everyone, the second I know what's next, I'll tell you! For now, the answer is a big "I don't know." It's like senior year of college all over again...

The closer I get to the end of the program, the more I realize that a) I'm super excited and b) I'm also a bit sad! I've made some really awesome friends here, and we have a truly wonderful group of professors. I'll miss everyone after I graduate! I'm a bit of a nerd, I guess, and I've always loved school, so I'll even miss my classes! (Although not homework...)

Well this has gotten a bit long, so I think I'll make a separate post now about things I've been doing outside of school... Stay tuned for some pictures of WHALES up close and personal!

The Hawaii TESOL Conference

Did everyone have a romantic Valentine's Day? I certainly did. And by that I mean I spent Valentine's Day at the Hawaii TESOL Spring Conference! Romantic, right?

This year the conference was at Brigham Young University-Hawaii, in Laie, which is up on the North Shore. It's sort of a different world up there, so beautiful and relaxing and peaceful and just totally separate from the hustle and bustle of Honolulu. I love it, although getting there on the bus is quite a journey. Especially in the pouring rain which we experienced for part of Saturday!

This was my first TESOL conference, so I wasn't quite sure what to expect, but it was really cool! There were lots of my fellow HPU MATESOL students there. Some of the us were presenting in a panel and the rest were there for professional development and fun. I love seeing my classmates outside of school, actually, so it was really nice!

Some (but not all!) of the HPU MATESOL students who attended.

 The theme of the conference this year was "Identifying Problems, Finding Solutions." The day started off with a plenary address from Rebecca Oxford on "The Language of Peace: What it Means for Teaching ESL and Developing ESL Teachers." Her speech was really interesting and about how people from different cultures look at the world differently, and we as ESL teachers are sort of at this crossroads between different cultures and part of our job is facilitating peaceful communication. She talked about the different sort of layers of peace, all the way from inner peace to peace between people to peace to between cultures to peace between humans the environment, and suggested some activities to develop that peace. 

After the address, we went to smaller sessions. You can look at all the options here (you might notice my name missing from the panel I was one... rude!). There were lots of good ones, but I chose "The Impact of Culture on English Language Proficiency" and "Changing Learners' Attitudes toward Foreign Accented English" for the morning. They were both so interesting! In the first one, the speaker talked about how Japanese culture might affect English proficiency. She analyzed it using Hofstede's Cultural Dimensions, and it was really cool... Definitely made me think about my target cultures! The second speaker talked about the negative attitudes lots of learners have toward non-native accents and her action research about changing those attitudes through more exposure. 

Lunch was provided by North Shore Tacos and it was delicious (who doesn't love tacos?!). I sat with most of the rest of the HPU crowd, and we had a surprise special guest: Rebecca Oxford! She was really nice, and very interesting to talk to. She's taught at University of Maryland and Penn State, so we talked about MD and PA (the best states!). At the end of the lunch, the Hawaii TESOL officers sat with us and they were really nice too! I was intimidated at first by all these important people, but they were so friendly. 

After lunch it was time for the panel. Several of the grad students from the Computer Assisted Language Learning (CALL) class had been asked to be part of the panel with our professor, Dr. Hanh Nguyen. That is one of the coolest things about HPU's TESOL professors - they really encourage us to get out in the field starting now and to participate in things like this! We had presented the day before at an AL Talk here at HPU, but this was a bigger venue and I was pretty nervous! The dress rehearsal definitely helped though, because the panel were pretty smoothly overall (despite a few technological issues). My friend Nick and I presented on Praat, Aya talked about Spreeder, Kristine talked about VoiceThread, Martin presented on using Siri to teach pronunciation, and Kat presented on TutorMike. After we all finished, it was a pretty exciting feeling of accomplishment to be able to say we had presented at a conference! It was really nice to have some of our other HPU friends in the audience too!

After the panel, with our certificates (so official!) From left to right: Nick, Aya, Kat, me, Kristine, Dr. Nguyen, Martin.

 So there you have it! My first TESOL Conference. While it may not have been the most romantic way to spend Valentine's Day, it was definitely a great experience!

This week is a short week but we have a History of the English Language exam tomorrow, so wish me luck!

How is it the end of Week 3?

No seriously. How is the third week of the semester already over?! It doesn't help that February is so short; March is right around the corner already!

This week has been pretty busy. Work is starting to get busier with the semester underway. Tutoring is pretty slow the first few weeks because no one has any assignments due, but by Week 3 people start having actual papers and Spanish students realize they need to get their required visits over with, so they come in. Since I'm doing some of my Practicum II hours in a Spanish 1100 class (first semester Spanish), I feel like my tutoring is going better because I know exactly where the students are and what they've learned.

One of the best things, in my opinion, about the MATESOL program here at HPU is that we have so many opportunities for practical experiences. We have "microteaching" in most of our classes, which is when we teach our classmates a 10-minute activity. It's a great chance to get feedback from our peers. We also have a whole semester of Practicum I, which among other things gives us lots of observation hours in a bunch of different settings, which was so valuable.

Now in Practicum II, we're placed in one (or two) classes for a longer period of time. It's great, because you get to know the students and the class and the mentor teacher pretty well. What's extra awesome about HPU's practicum courses is that they're quite flexible and you can have a lot of choice in where you do it, so I'm really fortunate to be doing mine in two places this semester! For the first half, I'm in the SPAN 1100 class, and for the second half, I'm in an ESL academic writing class. I'm excited about it because not only do I get two very different and very valuable experiences to learn from, but the program will give me a letter saying I did student teaching in both English and Spanish, which will be great when I apply to future jobs! Since I'm not 100% sure where I want to end up in the future, it's nice to have the double option of teaching ESL or Spanish. Even though the MATESOL program is focused on English, primarily, lots of alumni go on to teach other foreign languages as well, so it really does give you a lot of options!

Anyway, speaking of Practicum II, I solo-taught an activity this week! I was pretty nervous, and it didn't go perfectly (does teaching EVER go perfectly? This is a real question!), but I think overall it went pretty well! My mentor teacher gave me some great feedback and I definitely plan to incorporate it into the next activity I teach. I was so nervous about this activity that I made my boyfriend be my "trial student" the night before, because I figured if he understood my directions, then a first semester Spanish class would. And I was right! Not everything went according to plan, but my directions weren't the problem. (Lost materials was the problem, and of course they were found about 5 minutes after the lesson!)

And now, because I feel like a blog post without a photo is boring (my father once told me that my blog posts were too long and no one wanted to read about all the minutiae of my day and to just post photos... and if my own father said that then I assume everyone else is thinking it!), here's a photo of me and my lovely classmate Kat on a hike we did over winter break at the Lanikai Pillboxes. It had great views!

Keep an eye out next week for an update on my trip to Kauai! :)

It's spring semester?

So... I'm not sure how this happened, but it's spring semester! It's FEBRUARY. January was over so fast!

We're 2 weeks into spring now, so I guess I should post an update about all the things going on! There's a lot going on.

I'm taking 4 classes again, which is a lot of work but so far I'm managing. They are:

• Second Language Writing: As a writing tutor, I am really excited about what I'm going to learn in this class! So far it's been really interesting.
• History of the English Language: I love the super linguistics-focused classes, and this one is no exception! It's a night class on my longest day of the week but it's so worth it. I love this class!
• Practicum II: This is basically student teaching. I'm splitting mine between a Spanish 1100 class and an ESL Academic Writing class. Both very different experiences, so I'm excited to learn what I can from them!
• Capstone: This is basically preparing my portfolio. Which is a lot of work! If I could give advice to anyone in the program, it would be to get started early. Work on it over breaks. It's a lot. But it's kind of interesting too, and it's cool to think that this could be what I show future potential employers! It's a good way to reflect on how much I've learned in the program and how far I've come from just 2 years ago!

In addition to school, I'm presenting at two AL Talks this semester (February 13 and February 27). AL Talks are hosted by the Applied Linguistics department, and they're just sort of extra-curricular opportunities to learn a little more. Sometimes we have visiting professors or speakers and sometimes it's students in the program and sometimes it's other things. On February 13, I'm part of a student panel on technology in language teaching. On February 27, my classmate (also named Sara!) and I are presenting something about our curriculum development project from last semester.

On Valentine's Day, we have the Hawaii TESOL Conference... How romantic, right? The student panel on technology is presenting there, too. I'm so nervous! I've never presented at a real conference before. But it's exciting, too! 

That's about it as far as spring semester so far. Between four classes and work and everything I'm pretty busy! But I'm also so aware that this is my last semester and I want to enjoy everything Hawaii has to offer, so look out for some fun-stuff updates this semester as well :)

Speaking of fun stuff updates, I have two big ones to make about winter break! I got to visit Maui and Kauai, and I had a BLAST. Coming soon, I promise.

Fall 2014 Recap Part 1: ITO Fun!

So rather than overwhelm you all with an incredibly long post about all the fabulous things I did this fall, I thought I'd space them out a little. You're welcome.

So what better way to start off than with ITO? If you don't know, ITO stands for the Intercultural Teachers Organization, and it's our student club in the HPU MATESOL program. I'm the co-vice president and the treasurer, and it's a lot of fun! ITO is a mix of work and play - we do lots of professional development but we also have fun! I joined ITO during my first semester because I wanted to make friends, and I have loved every ITO event I've gone to! And I even made some friends ;) 

What an attractive group of people, am I right?

Our first even this semester was a social and it was a great success! Normally, TESOL events happen at school, but we had this one in the party room of a nearby apartment building and it was great! Grad and undergrad students and professors all came. Everyone brought food (we are all about the potlucks in the TESOL program) and we played games and chatted and it was great! A huge success, if I do say so!

We also had a booth at Halloween Funfest, which is a big event HPU has the week before Halloween. Clubs and groups have booths, and there are games and candy and costumes and food and it's so fun! The local community gets involved too, and lots of kids come by to play the games and get candy. There's a costume contest and a booth contest, and afterward they show Rocky Horror Picture Show. This year, ITO teamed up with the Future Teachers Club to put together a Toy Story-themed booth.

Toy Story!

And guess what? We won best booth! The prize was a bag of goodies and free tickets to see the new Hunger Games movie a few weeks later! (HPU rented out a theater for it - it was great!) 

TESOL students love a good photo booth.

ITO also hosted an Open Mic event this fall, where we shared teaching activities and got to hang out with a group of visiting teachers-in-training from Brunei, who are about to set off on 2 years of teaching in Cambodia and Laos. Pretty cool, huh?

We also scored 10 lucky people memberships to HALT, the Hawaii Association of Language Teachers (for all languages, not just English!) and attended their fall symposium. The theme was computer-assisted language learning, which was actually one of the classes I took this fall, so it was pretty cool to learn even more about it. (I even downloaded a cool app called Memrise to learn Basque for free! BASQUE! So cool.)

This spring, we have some cool upcoming events as well, including the Hawaii TESOL conference and a hike with the professors. I'm pretty excited!

Hello there!

Well hello everyone!

It's currently fall finals week here at HPU, so as you can imagine, I'm a little bit busy! I promise to make some better posts next week about my time at HPU so far and what I'm looking forward to for next semester, but for now I thought I would start by introducing myself :)

My name is Sara, and I'm just finishing up my third semester here at HPU in the MATESOL program. (What's MATESOL? Master of Arts in Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages... try saying that three times fast!) I am originally an East Coast girl from Baltimore, MD, so I'm a pretty long way from home out here in the middle of the Pacific! (It's December and I wore shorts yesterday, which is something I don't think I'll ever get used to.) I got my B.A. from Dickinson College in Pennsylvania and studied Political Science and Spanish Literature. After that, I worked for AmeriCorps teaching ESL (English as a Second Language) for a year back in Baltimore before deciding that I wanted to go to grad school!

In addition to my classes here at HPU, I work as a Spanish and Writing tutor in the Center for Academic Success. That's a lot of fun because I get to meet HPU students from all sorts of programs! I'm also the co-Vice President/Treasurer of our TESOL student group, the Intercultural Teachers Organization (ITO). Needless to say, I'm pretty busy!

Outside of school-related things, I like reading pretty much anything, mastering new recipes in the kitchen, trying new kinds of tea (I love tea!), and exploring all that Oahu has to offer.

This winter break, I'll be working once a week as a tutor, starting on my portfolio, and relaxing after my busiest semester yet! I'm really excited to use some of my downtime to be a tourist again and do some fun Hawaii things! What are you all up to this winter?