Reflection For Teaching English

Throughout the course of English composition 101 I had participated and worked on many different assignments that lead to better understanding and enhance of skills I had already learned in while in high school as well as the learning of new techniques and process in which to imbedded into my writing to make it better. Some of the assignments and in-class activities that lead to this included the several essays I wrote, presentations, actively-reading assignments, and in-class lectures. These assignments and in-class activities led me to better understand how to compare essays, use and develop a writing process that work efficiently for myself, better organize essays, learning to use grammar and punctuation better, identify creatable sources to use in papers, to read critically through another person work, and citing sources using MLA format. Although I had already learned the basics of many of these learning objectives throughout my high school education this course helped better enhance these skills and better prefect my writing for the future courses and careers.

Each year, schools across the nation are seeing an increase in the amount of English language learners they are receiving. Teachers of all grade levels are finding it harder and harder to teach these ELLs because of lack of or little to no proper training. So the article, Setting the Foundation for Working with English Language Learners in the Secondary Classroom aims to show you the ideas and strategies that current and future teachers can incorporate into their daily class lessons to make them more effective in meeting the academic needs of ELLs and in helping them learn the target language.

The toilsome component this semester was transitioning from being a high school level writer to a college-level writer. However, English 10 has by far been my best experience in writing. By taking this course I have retrieved many helpful elements, that will help me become a successful writer throughout college. In high school, essays often gave me stress and anxiety, however, when taking English 10, I was able to learn to enjoy the process of writing purposefully and mindfully. Even though, I have taken advanced placement English courses in high school and have taken a practice run of college level English over the summer with Professor Brenda Venezia, I was still able to retrieve a lot more from this course. To showcase my progress in

What have I learned in English 102? When I began this class, I had not taken a formal English class in over thirty years. I understood sentence structure and essay writing to a point. To elaborate my understanding was based on story telling rather than research and factual commentary. Of course, rhetorical review and research was foreign to me. I had a loose understanding but had never practiced or been in a position to apply these skills. Or at least that is what I thought. Since beginning this course, I have found it both challenging and enlightening. I feel that my skills have developed over the last few weeks and a greater understanding of what it takes to identify and understand complicated subjects has progressed. Not just that I can read difficult scholarly text, but that I can focus on what they are trying to say, their argument, and then develop my own counter argument in support of or against the authors statements. It is more than just saying I concur or I do not agree with you. It is stating how my point of view differs and supporting my statements logically and directly with facts, not just conjecture. Within the following paragraphs I will discuss, in more detail, the specific areas where I feel I have matured and how I intend to apply this new-found knowledge to my future writing as well as reading materials to assess their value.

Before taking this class I never liked my English classes more specifically writing essays for them. I didn’t understand much of how to use strategies while writing essays and focuses little on learning it. By taking this class and using the strategies that I was provided with it made taking this class easy and enjoyable while writing analytical essays. I was willing to put in the effort and do my part in order to get a good grade in this English class and it worked. I feel that my performance in an English class has improved significantly.

It's hard to believe that it’s already time for Midterms in my English 101 class. The adventure has been a lot easier than I at first anticipated. In any case, I am happy that I am taking the class and learning from it. In the beginning it appeared somewhat hard however I was resolved to compel my way through this class regardless of what difficulties I needed to persevere.

English has always scared me a little because I have never been super confident in my writing abilities, however this year I am looking optimistic. By the end of this english course, my goal is to be more confident in my writing abilities. Also, I hope to not only become a better reader, but to comprehend what read. Sometimes when I read, I will not fully grasp what the author is trying to say, or I will not understand what the moral of the story is, so I would love to work on comprehension skills this year. Another area that needs improvement is knowing where to put commas. I realize that commas are placed to continue a sentence without having it turn into a run on, however I will usually place commas in the wrong spot, or I will not add them

Before I stepped foot into my English 1303 class, I had assumed that it would’ve been a class that I was not fond off. Within high school, English was never one of my strong points; so when college started I did not really know what to expect. Most of the time during high school, I would never really give much thought into how my essays were written, I just wrote them to get it over with. Within high school English classes, I had never experienced any sort of connection with the pieces that I had to write about. The topics that we reviewed were of no interest to me. Being introduced to the same environment had me very much afraid of doing the same process all over again, but now I currently enjoy both the writing and the class. So far this

If a student expresses to you that they didn't comprehend what you said, you should never just repeat the exact same thing that you said in a louder voice!

High school was a major transition when it came to my literary skills. I took the most challenging english courses throughout each year of my high school career. During my sophomore year a new program was introduced, AP Capstone Academy. The introduction of this program allowed our high school to finally be recognized as a magnet school in our county. There were two classes that must be taken to continue enrollment in this program, they were AP Seminar and AP Research. Though I found it a drag to add on a writing class on top of my english class I was not looking forward to it my sophomore year, but little did I know how much it would help prepare me for academic writing in the future. During my junior year I took AP Seminar. This class involved a lot of reading and learning how to breakdown

Discussions are one of the most significant method of exchanging information in order to gain a better understanding about a particular topic. In english class this year, I participated in dozens of discussions in which my intellect has grown. Originally, I was solely focused on my grade in the class and only spoke with the intentions of getting the highest grade. Eventually, I realized that I should perform in a matter than benefits the entire class as a whole, giving everyone a better understanding of the material. As soon as I began to function selflessly without worrying about my grade, I had a much more positive influence on the class during discussions.

The topic of my English 1101 class this semester was “American Murder” which, to me, is as interesting as an English class gets. The only downside was its integration of forcing students to participate in WOVEN communication. In fact, the whole goal of the course was to turn students into better multimodal communicators; the secondary goal was to enhance our knowledge on murder in America. I hated that, I wanted to learn more about murder in America, not do stuff that triggered my social anxiety. What I absolutely hated the most, however, was the fact that this class was actually useful. Using multimodal communication actually makes sense and could just be that difference between a “meh” performance and an incredibly amazing one. That being said, I do struggle with some of the concepts of multimodal communication. I struggle with all of them but I do struggle with one way more than I struggle with the others because social settings give me anxiety. Given this information, it wouldn’t surprise you to know, that I, Alessandria Holley, am a pretty bad oral communicator.

This first semester at the University of Akron has flown by. I learned many new writing concepts that helped me become a better writer. English composition was a required class that I had to take in order to get my degree. Although this class was required I still wanted to take this class to become more knowledgeable about writing. Coming into English Composition I was worried about all of the papers and the workload that I would have to complete. I knew that I was going to have to write a lot more than I previously had in highschool, but I was unsure of just how much. The works that I decided to include in my portfolio comprise of my Literacy Narrative, Image Analysis Paper, and essay titled Mayas Hardships based on Maya’s experiences in I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings. I selected these works because I felt that they are the ones that require the most improvement to them. The papers i've chosen show how far I’ve came In English Composition.

The professional development of a teacher can be a challenging task yet not impossible. During the process of this course I have learned how to face this challenge. However developing my own ideas and style of language teaching is still a work in progress. As a prospective language teacher I take in all methods and principles this course as given me. In doing so I believe it will make me a better professional. This course has presented me with some thoughts ELT teachers need to have once the period of formal training is over.

Jim Scrivener, Learning Teaching: The Essential Guide to English Language Teaching 3rd Edition (Oxford:MacMillan Books for Teachers, 2005).