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Reflective Journal

(areflective essay on the Graduate School of TESOL)

Most of the courses that I have taken within the Graduation School of TESOL so far have
been useful and I have learned much through them. However, there are a few courses
thathave become especially invaluable to me that I wish to reflect upon. They are ELT
Material & Development (ELTMD), Learning Management Systems (LMS), Bilingual
Education for Young Learners, and Intercultural Communication.

With regards to ELTMD, I was able to learnimportant basic principles in the

development of materials and content for the teaching of English.Since I am more interested
in curriculum and material development than teaching I have found that there are various
types of learning styles we should consider in order to motivate learners and makelessons
more successful.

For instance, the LMS course gave me a broader perspective towards utilizing
educational websites. In contrast to my original belief that LMSs could not be used for much
more than just presenting educational information, I learned how to make learners interact
with content through multimedia elements such as Hotpot exercises, wikis, discussion forums,
and audio slide shows. Duringthe constructionof my own website, I was able to learn basic
technical skills in creative applications such as Photoshop, Illustrator, and Flash. If I have a
chance in the future, I want to further improvemy technical skills. I may not need to be a
professional but it is important to know these skills as a content developer.

Since I have worked in a kindergarten and primary school, my interests have naturally
been peaked within the course µBilingual Education for Young Learners.¶ I have studied
many interesting concepts of bilingualism such as:(i) µspontaneous¶ and µsimultaneous¶
acquisition,´ (ii) how educators should vary the way they teach learners according to age and
proficiency, and finally, (iii)how educators should consider students¶ physical, affective and
cognitive domains in addition to language development.

Similarly, through the ³Intercultural Communication´ course, I have dealt with main
concepts and issues related to multiculturalism, identity, and global English. Various types of
questions have come upwhen applying this knowledge withina Korean context. For instance,
there were no clear answers to every discussion issue, but it was useful to broaden my
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perspective of English through intercultural communication. For instance, the question of

µWhat advantages can nonnative speaker teachers provide, which native speaker teachers
cannot bring to their teaching?¶ comes to mind. It was an interesting discussion topic since
there are many parents who believe that English should be taught by native speakers only.
Personally, I have worked with a native speaker (NS) teacher, in which we have taught the
same class in turns. I think there can be some financial reasons for co-teaching with NS and
NNS teachers together, such as reducingthe operating costs within the school. However, I
also believe that there can also be curricularreasons as well for employing NNS teachers. For
example, NNS teachers usually appear more approachable to young learners. When I was
teaching in primary school, I saw many students, especially girls, who felt intimidated on
their first day with our NS teacher. Even though their English ability was pretty good to
communicate with the NS, they reluctantly spoke to the teacher. Not all students in my class
were doingthat, but some of them could not overcome difficulties even after a while. These
students¶ behaviors could be explained by their personalities, confidence in using English,
and/or the demeanor/appearance of the NS teacher him/herself. According to Krashen (1977),
the best acquisition will occur in environments where anxiety is low and defensiveness absent
in contexts where the ³affective filter´ is low. The NNS teachers are more eligible to lower
students¶ anxiety and handle some affective factors which interfere in the process of second
language acquisition.

Secondly, the NNS teachers may have a better understanding of cultural and educational
contexts comparing to NS teachers. The NNS teachers can bring the source culture materials
proposed by Cortazzi and Jin (1996) that draw on the learners¶ own culture as content. Since
the NNS teacher shares the same cultural and historical background with the learners, it is
easier to have those contents in English class. The students may also feel comfortable and
enjoy the learning because the contents are familiar with them and related to their lives. As I
am a content and material developer, using the source contents will help the learners gain a
deeper understanding of their own culture and share it with others from different backgrounds
as well. McKay (2003, p.19) also said ³«.source culture content does not place local
teachers in the difficult position of trying to teach someone else¶s culture.´
Lastly, the NNS teachers could become a role model for their students. Students are also
nonnative speakers so students expect that their NNS teacher also had the same process of
learning like themselves and understand the obstacles or barriers to learning the language.
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This fact will give students a picture of their role model for learning a language. Thomas
commented,³They are role models; they are success stories; they are real images of what
students can aspire to be.´ Like this, even though the NNS teachers¶ fluency is not as good as
NS teachers¶ fluency, students might gain confidence since they can see their NNS teachers
enjoy speaking and using English.