My TIW reflectionUniversity of Maryland Writing ProjectSummer Institute 2010Min-Ah Kang

 Dear Everybody,  I can’t say thank you enough to everybody who attended my TIW and gave me such

supportive and useful compliments. Up to the last minute, I was very worried if my presentation was too childish and useless to most teachers in the workshop. However, I was very surprised with your unexpected responses. I truly loved reading all your letters. I wanted to say “Thank You” to everybody in the Summer Institute, however, I didn’t really have a chance to say it and Koreans aren’t generally good at expressing their emotions as much as Americans. So I would like to take this opportunity to say “Thank you” to everybody.

  First of all, I have to thank my coaching group. Without their support, I wouldn’t

have been able to come along with this journey. I remember the first day when I met my coach, Cory, and my coaching group. It was my first meeting with them since I wasn’t able to attend the orientation. Upon hearing what they were discussing, I was frozen with fear (although you might not remember ) because I thought that what I was doing with my ELLs in Kindergarten and First grade would be very childish and wouldn’t benefit the other English teachers in secondary schools and colleges. I was thinking, ‘Well, I must drop out this course.’ However, I couldn’t do it when I read the thoughtful e-mail from Cory, when he typed all what we had discussed in the meeting. And also, I didn’t want to let myself down by giving in to my fear. However, I was so exhausted and overwhelmed during the first week of the Summer Institute. Here is an e-mail that I wrote to my dear friend, Karen: “Well, I have been under so much pressure this whole week due to the writing project. This class is killing me...... most of the participants are English teachers who seem to love writing and seem to be good writers....I don't read and write as fast as they do.....so I feel like an ESOL student sitting in an AP English class.”

  Yes, the first week I wasn’t able to picture what the National Writing Project

Summer Institute was about, which caused the fear in me, and I felt that I was the only one overwhelmed and tired until we shared our feelings. As somebody said before, I started to enjoy the workshop once I glimpsed what it was all about. After I read all these thoughtful letters, I even felt privileged to be here and make some connections with these great teachers. Not only through presenting my TIW, but also through writing my personal essay, I have learned a lot about myself. Often, we don’t put much effort to reflect personally because we are all busy or because we are afraid of facing ourselves. I have never talked about myself and my fear this deep in front of strangers. Yes, this is a sort of therapy class, as Lisa said. I thank Pam who inspired me to write my self-reflection by introducing the poem, “The Invitation.” I thank Joseph, Kat, and Carla who encouraged me to write my personal experience as a language learner. I thank my writing group and reading group for all their support as well. I truly thank everybody in this room. In Korea, I have never enjoyed working in groups, perhaps due to feeling superior in my English language proficiency compared to others. I took so many things for granted. However, I have learned a lot of things from teaching ELLs in the U.S.A. and as a second language learner myself. The best thing I have learned in our institute is that I am working with great teachers together. I finally found the reason why I didn’t choose to go back to Korea and stay here. Also, I can tell readily that I’ll walk out the Summer Institute with full of achievement and content. Thank you all for being the reason I stuck with the Summer Institute and for advancing my English proficiency to a level where I can make an even bigger difference with my own students.

  Sincerely, Min-Ah Kang.

P.S. I wanted to keep all the words that you all have written, but I highlighted some of the lines that you mentioned in letter that touched me deeply:

You got through a lot of material in a very short period of time. Your personal experience as an ELL student yourself added to the richness of the experience for us. –Cory

 I thought the part where we were “in our students’ shoes” was so powerful. I felt the frustration right away. I also felt the desire to be perfect – what you talk about in your personal/professional piece. –Lindsay The thing I am working on is my level of sensitivity with my students. The ELLs are so easily embarrassed by their language acquisition issues and just because they are 12/13 and that’s where they are developmentally. This workshop reminds me that I must be subtle and speak with my ELL students

privately about their accommodations and needs. – Lissa It is hard to try to keep all of this in mind during the school year, but having this experience with you will certainly make me try very hard to find a way. –Lisa Yearwood This workshop was enlightening for those of us who do not have ELL students in the classroom and the activities

you planned for us were perfect to help us understand their point of view. ~ Your lesson left me with mixed emotions of frustration (when I couldn’t do something well) and joy (when I could or when I finally understood the predicament of ELL students.

-Bev    

You show great courage in taking on all the challenges of learning the languages and tolerating the

impatience of persons who don’t realize how complex and difficult education is in the U.S. for L.E.P. students. –Joseph

 

Your lesson was exactly what a TIW should be –providing the opportunity to feel what our students feel and inquire about how our teaching can most successfully accommodate them.

You presented a lot of information and kept it flowing well. –Carla

 

One of the most powerful pieces of your TIW was engaging us in your Korean directions with and without visuals and gestures. It truly put us in the shoes of ELLs and allowed us to feel the

enlightenment and relief when we realized what the directions were, using your resources.

 

I really liked the way you referred to other TIWs and had us consider how they could be modified

for ESOL students. –Shana

 

The workshop you presented today should be a part of every new teacher orientation. Putting on another’s shoes would slow children and teachers down and increase empathy for others.

-Leslie

 

I liked when you gave us directions in Korean. It was helpful for us to see how difficult in must be

for an ELL students to understand English. It was a good idea to have us try to change the other

TIW’s to help ELL students. -James

 

I never really understood why writing was so hard for some of my students until I had to copy those words. It was really good for me to walk in their shoes. –Jocelyn

 

 

After the cut-up sentence exercise, I can totally understand why students are silent for so long. I also better understand why it takes so long for students to learn vocabulary. I don’t remember how to say ‘ I love you’ in Korean….. it would take a lot more practice. Actually, I’m amazed at how quickly many of our ESOL students learn English. –Michelle K.

 I especially liked trying to write Korean and Chinese characters and I liked feeling afraid of

pronouncing the languages – it made me feel how it must feel for non-English speakers in America.

You’re inspired me to study Spanish again and learn until I am fluent. –Maggie It has been a while since I really have thought about how an ELL student learns in stages. We take so much for granted and putting us in their shoes is a great way to recall how they feel. Michelle A. I think that your presentation allowed me to revisit in my mind what I do and think about how I can

better help my kids. -Kat I appreciated seeing the different languages and how they can be similar and different based on the

composition of the sentence. –Shane I think that it opened the eyes of a lot of the teachers in the group and gave a realization that being ELL students is no way easy. – Rosemary Thank you for reminding us of the struggles of second languages learners. Wow! I sure felt dumb. -Amy Thank you for the innovative TIW. The activity clearly demonstrated the struggles ESOL students

have in learning to read and write English. -Shelia

 I know there wasn’t time, but it would have been interesting to have information on

the syntax of even more languages that our students speak so we could use it for a

reference. -Cory I wonder if you could teach that entire section in Korean.How would you suggest involving families of ELL students more in school? Do you have suggestions specifically about homework?What kinds of homework assignments can best support ESOL students? - Carla I think you should do a little more of that in the workshop. -James I feel like you need to do these workshops for a lot of teachers. Since I only teach a

few ESOL students at a time, I have never been trained or understood how to work with them – so thank you for this lesson. –Jocelyn

 Do you have any suggestions as to who might give an in-service training to our

school to sensitize them? I would suggest next time spending more time on how each group could

accommodate the TIWs to second language learners. –Amy