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domingo, 17 de junio de 2012

Identity Crisis


Who am I?  My name is Jennifer, but I am known as Shammy in this part of the world (and this part of the world is the northwest suburbs of Chicago).  The more important question, though, is what am I?  I've been called many things over my educational career.  I started as an EFL teacher (English as a Foreign Language) when I taught for two years at a high school in a small town in Poland.  I then returned to upstate New York where I was an ESOL(English to Speakers of Other Languages) teacher and then a TESL (teacher of English as a second language) while I pursued my Masters Degree.  With my Master Degree in hand, I moved to Chicago for no reason other than to have fun!  I returned to being an ESL teacher in the Chicago Public Schools.  After a few years, I moved out to the suburbs (for love!) and switched to teaching at the elementary level.  This is when things got crazy with my job title.  Some people called me an ESL teacher; to other people I was a TPI teacher (transitional program of instruction - I really have no idea what that means).  The next year at the same school, the State Board of Education decided that I should be called an ELL (English Language Learner) teacher.  The following year, still at the same school, I became an EL (English Language) teacher.  Whatev!! No matter what my job title was, my job responsibility was always to teach English to students whose language background was a language other than English.  For the 2011/2012 school year, my world was completely changed. I became a 1st and 2nd grade multi-grade Spanish transitional bilingual teacher (not by choice). Part of my job responsibility is to still teach ESL, but now I am responsible for teaching all subjects in Spanish while helping my students improve their English language proficiency.  What a crazy year!
Who are you?  What type of teacher are you?

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