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!

Some big news!

This semester is FLYING by. There are only SIX more weeks (including finals)! I only have six more weeks as a student! Six more weeks until... until what, you ask?

So you might recall that I said I have no idea what I'm doing next year. Well, that has finally changed! I HAVE NEWS!

So, I refrained from posting about this in case it didn't work out, but it has, so I can finally post!

After a lot of thinking last summer, I decided to apply for a Fulbright English Teaching Assistantship. I decided to apply to Spain because it is my favorite place in the world. So I wrote essays and filled out a lengthy application and asked for recommendations and then I had an interview with a panel of professors from HPU. And then I turned it all in by mid-October and I settled in for the longest wait of my entire life. (I didn't even wait that long to find out about college or grad school!) Lalala. No stress...

Except EXTREME STRESS the day the Spain decisions came out and... I didn't have an email! Nothing! Not in my Spam folder, not hidden among other emails, not a thing. Everyone seemed to have heard but me. Being in Hawaii and 6 hours behind the East Coast, I discovered all of this at 6 AM on a Monday, which is not a good time to discover anything. I called the Fulbright office and told the lady that I hadn't gotten my email and she just said that some of them had bounced back, and she couldn't tell me my results over the phone (WHY?!), but she would try resending them later that day. Of course, I panicked and called my mother. 

She calmed me down a little bit, but I was about ready to throw up from nerves. AND I was set to be videotaped teaching that morning. What a day! Anyway, while we were on the phone, I got an email with the subject "Fulbright Application Andorra." Which is not Spain, so I was confused. Did they know who I was? I didn't apply to Andorra! Surely there had been another mistake.

I opened it (hyperventilating slightly) and found out that they could not offer me a spot in Spain, but there were extra spots in Andorra, and would I like to go there instead? I wasn't 100% sure this was a thing that could happen, and I was not sure from the wording of the email if I definitely got Andorra or if I'd have to wait even more. I replied saying that yes, I was interested, and I got an email back shortly confirming that I was indeed being offered a Fulbright to teach in Andorra!

It was so surreal. I was excited but so surprised! Here I'd been planning to either stay in Hawaii or be in Madrid, and now I was going to Andorra! Most people, when I told them this, said "Andorra? You mean Pandora? Is that even a real country?" Some people said, "Is that a part of Spain?" To which I obviously replied:

But anyway, for those of you who don't know (which is most people, I guess): Andorra is a teeny tiny little country in the Pyrenees between Spain and France. Yes, it's a real country. The official language is Catalan, the area is 181 square miles, and there are about 80,000 residents. The main things to do there are hiking, skiing, and duty-free shopping. And in September, I'm going to be living there teaching 12-16 year-olds English for a year! WOO HOO!

The Andorran flag. I think it's pretty!

This is Andorra! So tiny!!!!!!

But soooo beautiful. Guess I'd better work on my skiing...

Seriously, doesn't it look like it's straight out of a fairytale?

So there you have it! My big news! That's about it for now... I'll post soon with some pictures of fun Oahu things that we've been doing and an update on school.

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!