I have always had a passion for the English language, for both literature and grammar. This passion led me in college to seek out a degree in teaching so that I could inspire others to share my same feelings. I was surprised to find that I was rather good at managing a classroom. I found this new passion through experience; during my year-long internship I got to know my students at a level that most pre-service teachers do not. I found purpose in teaching.

Towards the end of that year, there was a teacher in-service meeting about English Language Learners. My cooperating teacher and I sat in the back with our noses in our laptops, grading furiously. We didn’t have any English Language Learners in our classroom, or so we thought. There were three students who qualified for ELL services at our school, and one of them was in our classroom twice a day. We were stunned. Here we were at the end of the year, in the face of spring testing, and this student had never received these services or experienced any kind of additional assistance in our classroom. Why were we not told this before? How did we not figure it out ourselves? How did the system fail so utterly to help this student? These questions led me to my current studies at Vanderbilt. I had to be the answer to this problem.

Through my studies, I have learned more about what it takes to learn a language. Language is achieved through context. Authentic language happens within a social context in both literature and conversation. Otherwise, language has no purpose and is just a string of meaningless sentences. Why would a student read a piece of literature if there was not something that sparked interest through personal experience? Why would a student speak with the students around them or with the teacher if there was no reason to interact? Creating a lesson with an achievable objective for language use and infusing activities with interesting content will cause students to become more fully investing in learning.

Another important aspect of teaching language is the power of culture. Thinking back to my internship, some of the best moments I had with the ELL student was when I listened to him tell me about his interests in soccer and how the sport was a centerpiece in his family’s culture. Celebrating differences can make students feel empowered to share their own experiences with the class and encourage them to listen and learn about their peers. Learning about new cultures can inspire students to broaden their knowledge base and to find common ground through language. My future teaching will seek to harness the potential that lies in the cultural diversity within the classroom.

A third important factor in modern teaching is technology. In a time when technology is changing faster than ever, it is more important than ever to equip our students with the skills necessary to navigate our technologically dependent world. I have been fortunate enough to experience an internship where there is one-to-one technology and therefore witness what technology can be at its very best. Images, videos, audios, games, can enhance language and content learning and should be an integral part of any lesson. Technology can also enhance cultural aspects of a lesson. Bringing the cultures of the world to the classroom has never been more easy and more fun that it is right now. Students can not only explore the endless amounts of information on other cultures from online resources, but they can also share their own culture with people across the world. My future classroom will use technology to enhance cultural aspects of a lesson and encourage language use in the classroom.

My experiences in both undergraduate and graduate school have shaped who I am as a teacher, and further experience in the field will continue to shape my identity as an educator. I know that context and content are important in engaging students, but I must continuously learn what content inspires them. Culture should be an important part of my classroom, but I must be open to each new student’s cultural sensitivities. Current technology must be available and integrated in a lesson. My goal is to create a classroom using these points as cornerstones, in the effort to create an environment conducive to learning language and content and where students will no longer fall through the cracks in our educational system.