Testimonials

Skills

This area provided the newest information for me and was helpful in imagining how an English class could be taught. Breaking skills down into individual units was effective, but then showing us how they would actually be integrated was very beneficial to me. -Summer 2024 participant

I felt like the structure of the lessons for each week and the assignments were very useful. I really felt like I was applying the things I learned in class on the assignments. It also helped that the practicum lined up with what we went over in skills class each week, giving more opportunity for application.  -Spring 2025 participant

 I liked how many resources were provided that I could use for lesson planning in the future. I also liked how it was relevant to today’s time by incorporating chat gpt lessons. -Summer 2024 participant 

I like how the modules nicely complemented the lesson objectives for the teaching practicum. Thus, I was able to consider how to apply what I learned to the approach I would take in my own portion of each lesson plan. Also, I appreciated being able to practice considerations of level and age appropriacy for the different skill sets. -Summer 2021 participant

Culture

I liked how this section was often run like an open discussion about both the instructor and our personal experiences with aspects of different cultures. It was a really engaging and interesting discussion among people who largely want to live among other cultures. There were also some good resources given in terms of how to learn more about the culture of a country you might want to visit. -Summer 2021 participant

This is an important part of being an effective ELL teacher, so I was glad we spent time on this component. I think discussing culture always brings out interesting observations and questions and helps to give us some perspective about teaching in another culture or teaching individuals from a different culture.  -Summer 2024 participant

I like how we incorporated discussions about culture shock as a process of leaving and returning to your home country. I’ve never really thought to categorize culture as a surface and deep category, but it was interesting to learn about, especially the iceberg image. -Spring 2025 participant

Fundamentals

I think this course does a great job of building a well-rounded foundation for becoming a teacher of English.  -Summer 2021 participant

I feel much more prepared to really be in control of my future classroom because of this course. It did a good job of explaining the basics of the logistical side of being a teacher, planning lessons, and controlling a classroom  -Spring 2022 participant

The format of the class was great in my opinion. It left decent space for me to work independently and learn through the materials provided, as well as give access to the instructor if I needed it.  -Spring 2025 participant

Much of what we covered in the Fundamentals course not only helped me in preparing my lessons for the teaching practicum, but they also helped me to think out my own approach and philosophy as a teacher for the future. Overall, the course was a good mixture of the theoretical and practical application. -Summer 2021 participant

Grammar

The grammar course did a great job of preparing to think about grammar in a teaching capacity. Though I understand intuitively how grammar works in English, figuring out how to teach those innate understandings is difficult. I felt like the grammar course succeeded in shifting my thinking on the topic to be more from a teaching point of view.  -Spring 2025 participant

The instruction was very clear and comprehensive. The assignments were related and reinforced what was taught.  -Spring 2025 participant

I liked how the course not only taught Grammar but also taught how to respond to students’ questions and errors about grammar. It was kind of an out of body experience to be a native English speaker and have to figure out why a sentence was wrong rather than just knowing how to correct it.  -Summer 2021 participant

Observation Practicum

[I liked] being able to sit in a class and just observe. I learn by watching first and then doing the task, so doing the live observation was very helpful to me.  -Spring 2022 participant

I enjoyed simply seeing how other instructors handled groups of students in comparison to myself. -Spring 2022 participant

What I liked about the observation portion of the practicum is I was able to learn tips from the instructor and keep notes for the future [teaching] practicum.  -Spring 2022 participant

Teaching Practicum

Having real examples of the types of situations we might encounter was great. I enjoyed getting some actual practice in for the skills and the grammar we were learning in the other modules.  -Summer 2024 participant

I liked everything about the teaching portion of the practicum. It was a great experience and I am really glad we had this opportunity. It was very interesting to see how an idea for an activity you had actually played out in a class.  -Summer 2021 participant

I loved getting to work with the students. -Spring 2022 participant

I enjoyed the learning curve of putting what we learned for the various courses into practice within the actual classroom. It was definitely a great learning experience of gauging the classroom dynamics, observing the reactions of the students, and being able to figure out what works and does not work from week to week.  -Summer 2021 participant