Biographical Sketch:

A personal discovery of language, travel, and technology.

       I earned my undergraduate degree in English with an emphasis in Creative Writing from the University of Central Florida the summer of 2000.  After studying the writing process formally, I knew that I wanted to work with the English language as a career.     

            Right out of college I worked as a merchandising manager for an interior design company in Jackson, Mississippi.  I was hired to get the business off the ground, and literally started from piles of merchandise on a concrete floor of a warehouse.  Starting and organizing a business was a rewarding challenge in itself. 

            I longed to work with people and language so I set out to help others use English creatively.  I moved from Jackson to Hattiesburg in order to pursue a second bachelors degree in English, this time with licensure to teach.  During my first semester I decided that if I were going to pursue another degree, it should be at the graduate level. 

            I found the MATL program at the University of Southern Mississippi and began tutoring adult learners at the English Language Institute at the University of Southern Mississippi in the summer of 2002.  I worked regularly with two adult students from Korea and Japan.  After seven months of tutoring, I was sure that this was the path I wanted to follow.  I loved working with adults and learning about their home countries and cultures.

            In my first semester of the MATL I took a course in Multimedia instruction as an elective.  I learned how to use Hyperstudio, an authoring program and teaching tool.  Simultaneously, I was learning about the use of online corpora in a Vocabulary class.  In the Vocabulary and Second Language Acquisition courses, I learned about the need for repetition in language learning.  Language students need to see and hear a word multiple times and in a variety of contexts in order to develop an accurate understanding of its definition(s). 

            I was learning the importance of interactivity in the learning process in the Hyperstudio class and found a way to cluster everything I was learning.  It was very exciting.  I created a lesson on computer terminology for adult English learners.  In this lesson, learners are first presented with a list of vocabulary words.  In another segment of the lesson they read the words in context and see a picture of the item or concept that the words represented.  In the next section they hear each word and answer questions about its meaning.  Then in the last part of the lesson the learner watches a short video that incorporates all of the vocabulary and answers questions about it at the end. 

            The lesson was designed to teach learners a set of vocabulary terms through repetition.  In the process of designing and building it I incorporated everything I had learned in the first semester of the program.  In addition, I was also doing an independent study project that played an important role in shaping the direction of my career.

            For my independent project I tutored at a local high school where I worked closely with a tenth grader from a Latin American country.  I was touched by this student because in addition to the challenges she faced of adjusting to a new culture and language, she was also experiencing some of the archetypal trials that come along with adolescence and public school.  Since I, too, moved as a teenager in high school into a new culture, I could relate.  I decided then that I wanted to work primarily with Spanish speaking adolescents who are learning English as a Second or Foreign language.   

            An additional lesson I learned from working with this student was that there are many different ways to teach one lesson.  Cara (name changed) needed help with her Algebra class.  She had taken several English classes in her native country but the math terminology was new to her.  In our weekly meetings it seemed as though she didn't know how to do the math that was assigned for homework.  In an attempt to help, I found myself completing a lot of her homework problems without her involvement. 

            With a pencil in my hand, one day I told her that I was going to write the problems but she had to instruct me.  In a previous lesson I taught her how to seek answers in the index of the book, so I left it up to her to find solutions to any questions or problems she may encounter. 

            But she didn't need to use the index she had known the math and terminology all along!  She told me to add this and multiply that.  We solved pages of math problems together.  The key for me was trusting (and discovering) that she knew more that she let on.  This episode helped me realized that the role of a teacher is not to know or give the answers, but instead to facilitate learning and help learners develop confidence.

            At the end of the spring semester I wrote a paper for Second Language Acquisition about non-native speakers of English in public education in the United States.  I learned important details such as the history of some of the laws pertaining to ESL education in our country.  An interesting fact I learned through my research is that twenty per-cent of the children in our public schools are non-native speakers of English.  With such a high percentage, I was shocked to learn how undeveloped our ESL programs are in the U.S.

            It was through the process of writing my SLA paper that I became interested in Content-Based Language Teaching (CBLT).  I discovered Complex Instruction (CI) by Elizabeth Cohen and Rachel Lotan.  CI is a way to structure classrooms that adheres to CBLT; it uses lessons and projects in such a way that gives each learner a role that is designed to strengthen his weaknesses and highlight his strengths.

            For example, an arrangement commonly made by teachers is to assign the most outgoing student as leader and to place the shyest student in a less domineering role.  In CI, you put might place the weaker student as leader to bring him out of his shell and help him develop leadership skills. 

            There is a place for non-native speakers in this format, as well.  This is great for mainstream classrooms because there is a place for everyone and English learners get lots of communication practice.  Suppose that the class is working on a project which involves geography.  You could put a non-native speaker in charge of the map and give him the role of giving the class geographical information when they need it.  This is just one example; there are many ways in which teachers can arrange groups and student positions that can best utilize or uncover their strengths.

            After writing my SLA paper I became very excited about CBLT in American classrooms.  It seemed to solve many of our problems with steadily decreasing budgets, teacher shortages, and oversized heterogeneous classrooms. 

            In June 2003 I went to Cuba on a Study Abroad program with Mark Miller of International Studies and Economic Development.  I was fortunate to have the opportunity to talk with two people who designed public education as it is in Cuba today.  Liana H. de Armas Delamarter-Scott and Mabel Menendez employed CBLT to teach English when Fidel took over forty years ago.  This method has been perfect for Cuba in its times of paper and book shortages.  Instead of requiring history books and English books, for example, they simply developed History books written in English.

            CBLT and the Communicative Approach are also used by Formatur, Cuba's Training Department for employees in the Tourism industry.  Osvaldo Cabrera Faxas, the Program Coordinator of Foreign Languages at Formatur, allowed my colleague and me to sit in on a class and talk with his students.

            His two students were in management in the Ministry of Tourism and needed to learn English for two reasons.  The first reason is to help them stay current on Tourism news that may be written in English.  In addition, they may find themselves in an International meeting where English is spoken.  The second is that since the people who worked under them were required to learn English, they wanted to set a good example.

            While talking with them we were able to observe some of the communication skills that Osvaldo had taught them.  Periodically, he reminded them to ask for clarification or phrases such as, Could you please rephrase that?  Osvaldo asked his students to present their final project for us, which was a Tourism presentation in English.  They were very nervous, but were talking about something they were knowledgeable about and interested in, which seemed to make it easier for the students.  I thought this was a really effective use of CBLT.

            My trip to Cuba made me aware of how much there is to be learned from studying the history, trends, and methods of educational systems found in other countries.  The United States is experiencing increasing budget cuts and shortages of resources and teachers.  I think that we can learn from Cuba's approach to teaching languages.  In this regard, I feel certain that many other countries have gained insight and innovations in education from which public education in the U.S. could benefit were the information gathered and distributed among educators.

            In the beginning of this semester I applied for a Fulbright Teaching Assistantship in Chile.  In preparation for the interview I researched the language teaching methods used in Chile.  I honestly didn't find out much about what they are using now in the public schools, but I did learn that since 1995 there have been many changes made in public education in Chile, particularly in the teaching of English as a foreign language.  I would like to learn about the EFL education in more countries through travel and bring teaching information back to the United States. 

 In turn, the U.S. has an abundance of resources that we could adapt to help other countries meet their educational needs.  In particular, I'm interested in using Internet resources such as online corpora to teach vocabulary and syntax using discourse analysis.  I see value in using context and collocational trends in place of grammar rules.  There are countless banks of text and data online that can be used to help learners discover (through input) how language is really used.  Since the universities in many less developed countries have computers with Internet access but the public schools don't, one possibility is to create printed materials derived from online resources.

            A beneficial side effect of educational networking is an increase in multicultural awareness.  I think that if more Americans travel elsewhere to teach English, there might be more than movies, sports and advertisements to represent our culture.  Likewise, I think it would be advantageous for Americans to learn more about foreign cultures in order to gain a more accurate understanding and acceptance of others countries and people from other countries.         

            Upon returning from Cuba I worked in the Honors College office for the remainder of the summer.  As previously mentioned, I am a TA for Honors Forum, a class of over 350 students.  In the spring semester we encountered many problems with the course.  Many of the students' paper submissions were lost or stolen.  We needed to develop a more efficient means for students to submit their papers.

            I had taken several classes that used WebCT as a medium for instruction and they seemed to work well.  I met with someone in the CICE office on campus and made arrangements to begin developing the online section of HON 321.  The course is now underway.  It has solved a lot of problems that occurred the previous semester, but since the class is so large there are continuously students who are having trouble with the technical details. 

          I have also been working as a substitute teacher for the ELI at USM this semester.  I've learned a lot about teaching in a classroom with five to fifteen adults.  I have subbed for all types of classes from Level 1 Grammar to Level 4 Writing.  I also have observed some ELI teachers for my practicum.  It is interesting substituting teaching and observing in the same classes.  I think that this is a great way to learn because I can compare my teaching to that of experienced teachers firsthand.           

            Ultimately, I would like to make an impact on bilingual education in the United States and the way in which it affects Spanish speakers.  I would also like to work to improve the quality of ESL (English as a Second Language) education in the United States.  My goal for now, however, is to educate myself so that I will be better able to serve my future students.  My immediate goal now is to seek the kind of educational experiences that can be gained only by traveling abroad. 

Updated 1/16/04