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I have three reasons for suggesting that internships in ESL are especially valuable: 1) Traditionally, an internship provides the novice with
the practical experience helpful in making a smooth transition between the
academic and professional worlds. A teaching internship can provide the
pospective teacher with valuable experience, structured and guided, before
he is placed in the classroom alone. 2) Today's stringent budget restrictions
make it exiremely difficult to offer teaching assistantships or other financial
help to more than a relatively few qualified applicants. An internship is,
in essence, a work-study program in which the work and study are closely
integrated. 3) ESL teachers I have supervised often complained that their
academic training did not really prepare them to teach, that their
training was not relevant to the "real world" of the classroom situation.
Whether justified or not, the student saw his complaints as legitimate,
and they need to be taken into account when setting up a degree curriculum.
Many potential teachers of ESL have little or no contact with learners of
ESL before they find themselves face-to-face with them in the classroom.
Internships offer an immersion into the teaching situation that practice
teaching does not, although that is a worthy alternative. The intern is
not a part-time teacher; he is full-time with full-time responsibilities. Nor
does the teaching of foreign students in a stateside environment usually
approachthe circumstances of teaching English overseas, where ages, motivation, goals, and curriculum may be much different. Thus, obviously, the
overseas internship is especially helpful for those who expect to teach
overseas.
There is the disadvantage that an internship increases the length of
time it will take for the student to get his degree, since the number of
required courses will be the same, with or without the internship. HowMr. Ewing, formerly a teacher of ESL at Michigan State University, Iowa State
University, the University of Tehran, and the University of Illinois, is Dean of the
College, Colby College, New Hampshire.
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Migrant Council in establishing English classes near the fields and factories
where the migrants work and live. Other domestic possibilities include
teaching in large urban areas, where both English as a second language
and English as a second dialect could be taught by interns, especially in
the community colleges; the University of Illinois this year has initiated
such a program at Triton College in Chicago and is exploring the possibility of opening other programs in the Chicago area.
There are three components necessary to any TESL internship program: 1) the teaching experience; 2) professional guidance in the form
of supervised teaching and seminars or workshops; and 3) community
involvement, since no internship program is likely to survive in a vacuum.
Efforts must be taken during planning and implementation to ensure that
each of these components is part of an integrated whole, is well thoughtout and administered. Based on my own experience with prospective ESL
teachers when I was field director of one overseas internship program, I
would like to offer some guidelines and suggestions in regard to pre-service
orientation and the internship experience itself.
I. Pre-service orientation.
Prior to arrival on the site, or shortly after, the interns need help preparing for their actual teaching and living conditions, both of which are
likely to be much different from anything they have previously experienced. On-site orientation is in addition to whatever academic preparation the interns have been able to receive before they begin teaching. The
following points highlight areas of special concern.
1. Hold at least part of the orientation program on the teaching site
so that the environment reflects the actual conditions the interns
will work in. Words alone or even words supplemented by pictures
will not have the impact of first-hand contact.
2. Call on former interns or other personnel who have had experience
in the same or similar situations to share their observations with the
new interns. Returned interns, especially, are likely to give valuable
suggestions and advice about "survival."
3. Relate the orientation program to the immediate and specific problems the interns will be faced with. For instance, interns will want
to know about local transportation-how much it costs, when it is
available, and how much knowledge of the local language is necessary to make full use of it. Questions will also relate to the teaching situation, such as the need to "sign in" at school, attendance at
teachers' meetings, the problem of discipline, pupil evaluation, and
so forth.
4. Carefully outline the roles of the interns as they relate to the overall teaching situation and to the specific teaching situation in which
the intern will find himself. In brief, indicate where he fits in the
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to compare their experiences with their peers'; 2) it gives the director the necessary "feedback" to assess the intern's state of mind
and his needs, especially in terms of his adjustment to the teaching
and living situations. The internship program should be as flexible
as the interns themselves.
5. The workshop-seminar should be related to the needs of the interns. The director must guide the discussion and he can assign
various topics for study and research; however, the interns will
probably need time to bring into play their own classroom experiences and the problems they are facing. The interns seem able to
see solutions to the problems of others more rapidly than they can
see solutions to their own; at least they are readier to verbalize them.
6. The interns should be encouraged to adopt a "learning posture"
with their local professional counterparts rather than a "teaching
posture." It may be necessary to remind the intern teachers that the
local teachers will be there long after they have left, and they were
probably there long before the intern teachers arrived; it's possible
that the local personnel see their teaching jobs in a somewhat different light than the interns do. More important, the intern may just
be wrong in his appraisal of the problem and in the solution he
would offer.
As partial illustration of my comments, I would like to look at two
"case histories" that reflect the actual experiences of two interns who were
under my supervision in Puerto Rico during the 1970-71 academic year.
I have selected these particular individuals because they represent two
extremes, yet each one embodies characteristics of the other interns.
A. JUNE
June began the school year with the predictable feeling of excitement.
Early in the academic year she told me of her contentment with her teaching assignment and with the school. By early September, however, she was
discouraged, in a state of despair, and utterly depressed. She withdrew
from the other interns, considered returning to the States, and generally
rejected everything: the program, the teaching assignment, the Puerto
Rican people, the Puerto Rican educational system, and its administrators,
her students, and her peers. Fortunately, June did not remain at this extreme low-level of negative feelings for the entire year, but neither did she
progress to the level of acceptance shown by the others, including those
who had been similarly depressed. Rather, June seemed to level off at
some point just short of full rejection. Yet she did do many things with
her Puerto Rican students that showed her interest in them. For instance,
she developed special activities for Halloween, Christmas, and Valentine's Day that were festive and personal. She immersed herself in the
local culture extensively by traveling around the island, mixing with the
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Unlike June, Jack was able to adjust swiftly, permanently, and with
seeming ease. He enjoyed teaching English, he did it well, and he developed his knowledge of English language, he became self-confident
in his teaching, and he committed himself to teaching ESL. His flexibility
and his capacity for organization were attributes of inestimable help during the period of adjustment, but his natural teaching ability was perhaps
the most important factor in his contentment. He gained immediate control of his students and he never lost it; they learned English and seemed
to enjoy doing it. Two excerpts from my journal will help show the progress Jack made.
September 28. I managed to visit Jack's class today for the first time.
I was very pleased with what I saw and I was quite impressed with his
presentation. In the fourth grade class he reviewed a written quiz he had
given last week, but he reinforcedit with a considerablequantity of oral
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repetition and he also laced it with his own vigor and powerful voice ....
The pupils displayed plenty of enthusiasm and it appeared that they were
with Jack throughout the class period. He eliminated the possibility of
boredom with his own tireless pace and by a song sung by the entire class,
involving the physical activity of touching the head, shoulders, etc....
The sixth grade was more docile, but Jack's approach was no less interesting. He was presenting comparisons for the first time . . . and he
did so with the help of . . . boxes of different sizes ....
He then moved
on to objects in the classroom ....
At the end of the class the sixth
graders were still enthusiastic and wholly involved in the proceedings.
Despite his success in these two classes, Jack searched for praise and
criticism of his presentation. In fact, he was so persistent in his questioning that I asked him if he didn't feel confident about his teaching and
he replied that he did not ....
When I left him, I don't think I had
really convinced him that he had done a good job teaching. I doubt that
he can be convinced; rather he must sense it for himself, realizing his
success from within.
March 3. I visited Jack's sixth grade class today and thought it excellent. The class reviewed for an exam, read from the language book,
and acted out a dialogue they had learned. I told Jack afterwards, "Of
course they're good students, and that always makes a teacher's job easier."
He replied, "Sure, but I'd like to think I'm the one that made them good
students." I thought his comment revealed the depth of his self-confidence
and the positive feeling he now has toward English as a second language....
Certainly these "case histories" are simplified; many crucial variables
have been omitted. Still, I hope they have served the purpose of showing
how diverse the responses to similar situations can be. Fortunately, there
were more interns who reacted as Jack did, but nevertheless students
such as June must be attended to and helped as much as possible. Largely,
however, it's a question of "accentuating the positive."