A quick rant about teaching…

After reading some of your blog posts, it makes me feel better to know that you guys struggled with this reading as well. Many times I found myself re-reading a sentence and trying to decipher whether I was actually reading English or some sort of academic, super fancy language I know nothing about. After class discussions and conversations with my group, I think I’m getting a better grasp of this whole concept.

Although I mentioned this in class, I want to reiterate because I think this issue is extremely relevant to the topics of our class. In class on Wednesday, I noted how my best friend and I are both currently enrolled in post-baccalaureate courses at Chico State. We both graduated from undergrad in 2014, and immediately started our programs. She is in the Teaching Credential Program, while I am in the Teaching International Languages Master’s program. Many times throughout the course of our studies we have consulted each other due to the fact that many of our courses are similar. Although her focus is on secondary education and mine is on ESL, many of the things we are studying are seemingly parallel. We learn about the same theories, methods, and strategies for teaching. Now here is big problem, even though both of us are in these programs to ultimately become teachers, the way in which we are learning to do so could not be more different.

In her program, she has had to shadow a teacher every week, five days a week, 8 hours a day. On top this, she also has the master’s level courses she must concurrently take while maintaining a full-time teacher’s schedule. My program on the other hand, only focuses on the courses. Throughout the entire course of our curriculum, there are approximately 5-6 times we have had to teach a lesson. These lessons were not full lessons, rather what they refer to as micro-teaches.

Although I have noticed these notable differences before, it hasn’t quite resonated as strongly as it has since I’ve started this course. Upon learning about LPP, I am astounded!!!!!! Although I have always known that my program in lacking in hands-on experience, I never quite realized how askew this plan of action for preparing future teachers really is. Now don’t get me wrong, I love the stuff I am studying and my program is amazing, but is this really the best way to prepare us to be teachers? Afterall, the name of the program is TEACHING international languages, but are we actually being prepared to TEACH? The main thing I’ve done as a master’s student is write papers, learn how to conduct research, and write more papers. I believe that a solid foundation in theory and methods is critical for teachers, but there must be more than that. I believe that it would be more beneficial to actually TEACH, instead of learning about teaching through classwork and reading.

Now that I have a better understanding of LPP and my viewpoint of learning in general has transformed because of this class, I think I am a little critical and skeptical of my program. BAH HUM BUG TIL program!!!! We need more hands-on experience and real-life practice.

Rant=OVER.