Yesterday was my first TEFL (Teaching English as a Foreign Language) class. Over the next 6 weeks, every Tuesday and Thursday for 3 hours, I will be earning my TEFL certificate. This will allow me to be an instructor to individuals who are learning English as a second-language. I hope to teach abroad in classrooms one day as it would simultaneously fulfill two passions of mine: teaching and traveling. Overall the transition to this course has been very easy.
During our this first week of classes we are focusing on grammar. I thought this would be extremely simple since I am a native speaker of English and have not been recently corrected on my grammar. Unfortunately, I was wrong. When our professor asked us how many verb tenses there were in English, nobody could think of the correct response. Turns out there’s twelve! The tenses that I use everyday, I have been taking them for granted. Now I can look at a sentence such as, “I have been taking them for granted,” and know it’s in Present Perfect Continuous tense. I do not remember ever learning that previously in Elementary school, but I’m thankful to know it now. It’s very interesting to kind of grasp how non-native speakers learn your native language.
An aspect of the TEFL certification I’m most excited for is the tutoring. I have to earn 20 hours of tutoring during these next 6 weeks in order to complete the certification. My peers and I will be tutoring students in the Center for Intensive English Studies at FSU. I’m very excited to interact with the students and learn from their experiences.
The subject I want to base my capstone project on is Linguistic Privilege. During these next few weeks, I would like to use the experience and knowledge I gain to learn more about the impact of linguistic privilege in immigrant communities. Because I will be interacting with English second-language learners from international communities in Tallahassee during this experience, it is the optimal setting to observe and inquire the adversities this community faces due to being non-native English speakers. I want to learn a lot about teaching English to international communities and hope to one day be an English instructor teaching abroad. I also want to use this experience as a foundation for my future research and inquiry into linguistic privilege.
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