A Journey as an English Teacher
Corpus Linguistics
This course explores nature of vocabulary, the role of vocabulary in language, and looks specifically at corpus and related on-line tools and how they might be used to enhance the teaching of language as a predominantly vocabulary-based entity to EFL learners. In essence, this three-hour-per-week course is designed to provide students with a course in issues and practices related to the teaching and development of EFL vocabulary with a focusing on corpus and other computer-based tools. Although the goals of this class are practical, there will be some theory involved centering mostly on aspects of lexis/vocabulary. In this course we will be taking the widening viewpoint that vocabulary is the central component of language and that teaching language should revolve around different aspects of vocabulary and how they interact with and shape all aspects of language. This is most fitting here because it is through extensive study of corpus that linguists can observe these connections in real language use. Further, it is through corpus that teachers can help their students better understand real language use. Thus, we will learn how to use this corpus-based approach as a tool for helping our students learn English better.
Teaching Reading
This course aims to develop teachers’ abilities to teach reading. With this aim, the course first explores different theoretical perspectives underlying second language reading, before introducing various instructional reading interventions. In addition to exposure to numerous exemplary reading practices, students will have many opportunities to try out specific teaching techniques.
Spring 2016
Fall 2016
Discourse analysis
This course is designed to provide students with instruction and practice for the development of knowledge and skills related to the teaching of spoken forms of an additional language. The course is designed as a review course and as such we will be covering various issues in the teaching of speaking but the various material is interconnected through a discourse perspective. Discourse analysis studies the relationship between language use and the contexts in which language is used and is therefore well suited to a course focused on spoken, situated language use. In essence, this course will be a practically-minded overview of the macro-skill of speaking and how we as teachers can best deal with and develop the micro-skills our students need to be better speakers of English. This course provides an overview of what speaking is as a particular type of language use and seeks to develop skills on how we as teachers can help our students develop as speakers of English.
Principles of Language Testing
This course provides students with an introduction to the basic concepts and principles of language testing and assessment, including how to develop valid and reliable tests, how to link assessments with instructional aims, how to develop test specifications, standards and rubrics. We will begin with fundamental theoretical concepts related to assessment and testing, and later move on to how these can be applied in practice with regard to each of the four language skills, both in conventional assessments as well as in alternative assessments. We will also be discussing some of the current issues related to language assessment and testing.
Spring 2017
Teaching Writing
This course has two main areas of focus, both of which revolve around composition, but from different angles. Part of the course is designed to provide students with instruction in the foundations of English composition itself, the goal being to provide instruction and practice which will enable the students to improve their compositions skills. The course will also ultimately focus on how to teach writing/composition in the English language. It is believed that the special hands-on practice which the students will get in this class serves to heighten their understanding of some of the aspects of teaching writing/composition. Focusing on contextualized skills development, the classroom will endeavor to serve, as always, as a model environment for the student teachers.
Human Learning and Cognition
This course focuses on the brain, its structure and mechanisms, in particular in how they relate to how people learn regarding memory and language. The course has two main areas that are to be covered. The first of these is the learning and memory component. The second component revolves around brain structure and functioning as it relates specifically to language. Here we will be looking at different elements of language and how they can be explained through theories of brain structure and functioning. In effect, we are looking for ways in this course to tie together the brain, memory, and language in a holistic, principled way.
This page shows the coursework I have taken for four semesters under the MA TESOL program at Sookmyung Women's University.
Fall 2017
Practicum Ⅰ
This course has as its main component the running of a detailed Action Research project to be conducted individually by the Practicum participants within their own teaching setting, or in pairs as part of the Sookmyung English in Action class teaching team. It is requirement of the practicum that each participant teaches a class throughout the semester. The Action Research project requires them to reflect critically on their own teaching situations and implement substantive changes to their own teaching situation. In doing so, participants will get a chance to critically reflect on their own teaching situation and will also find ways of enhancing their own teaching.
Practicum Ⅱ
This course has two main components. The first of these is the reflective component. We will be using the reflective journals and videos taken during the teaching of the participants’ courses to reflect on our own individual teaching practices as well as on elements of in‐class language learning. Reflection is one of the key elements for further developing teaching skills in in-service teachers and as such is used as a way of getting teachers to develop skills which enable them to become autonomous in their own development as teachers. The second component of this class revolves around the design and creation of a teaching portfolio. Here we will be working individually and in groups to create a portfolio that highlights our training, skills, and achievements as teachers. An important part of this teaching portfolio, which will be handled for the most part in the sister course (Practicum I), will be an action research project. In this way, this course is seen as a real-world review for the comprehensive exams and a practical application of all that has been learned in the entire TESOL MA program.