Best Fieldwork Placement EVER

This week has been monumental. I started an internship, a job, a dorm based community service project and submitted my first paper as a TESOL student! I am ecstatic with how everything has turned out so far.

On the dorm front, the residents on my floor started their mentoring project at a Southwest Philadelphia elementary school. My freshmen truly amaze me. They are new to college living and Philadelphia and yet they are so pumped about working with kids in underfunded schools. Most of them have never used public transportation before and now they are riding the trolleys by themselves into southwest Philadelphia. This is why I chose to live in the dorm. I mean, sure, the free housing and beautiful accommodations helped expedite my decision making process, but working with this particular group called the Mentors Program is inspiring. Last week we painted the school yard and this week they start working in classrooms!

It just so happens that my job and internship are also based in the same Southwest Elementary School. I will be working with the ESL teacher twice a week during the school day and instructing academic enrichment three days a week as part of their afterschool program.

This combination is my dream job. I loved student teaching last year specifically working in classrooms. And as much as I'm committed to ESL students and interested in learning about their struggles to make sense of this country and this language, I'm very excited to maintain that classroom teacher persona by working with students after school.

The Pull-Out ESL model is a very different dynamic in terms of student-teacher interaction. I am used to instructing a whole class and I now I am pulling a few students out of a classroom to work in a room down the hall for a shorter period of time. It will definitely take some getting used to. I’m just grateful to have the opportunity to implement some of the methods and strategies I’m learning in my classes in an actual educational setting!