Final Reflection Today, I visited my little schoolhouse on the side of the highway in Atenas, Costa Rica, for the

last time. I have spent the last eight weeks teaching English classes to adult students there, and their last day of class also marks my last day of student teaching. I spent my first eight weeks at Hellgate Middle School in Missoula, Montana. There, I taught six periods of eighth grade Spanish and helped with one period of reading. It was an extremely valuable experience, and I grew a lot as an individual and as an educator during my time at Hellgate. The experiences that I have had here in Costa Rica, however, have been even more influential on my personal and professional development. The many challenges Ive faced here have forced me to be analytical, creative, tolerant, patient, and humble. These last few weeks have been difficult and frustrating, but also rewarding and incredibly fun. I occasionally had trouble understanding my colleagues and students, and in turn making myself understood. I was the only native English speaker in the class and although my Spanish is very good and my cooperating teachers and students English is very good, we sometimes could not communicate the subtleties of our ideas. Most of my time outside of school was spent speaking Spanish, which also necessarily involved miscommunication and misunderstanding. Striving for mutual understanding is tiring and difficult, and at first, I was completely drained at the end of every day. However, it is a skill that requires practice like any other, and it became easier as the days progressed. As I discovered different and more innovative ways to bridge these language gaps, my skills as a communicator

benefitted greatly, and this is something that I can apply directly in any language classroom. Another challenge that I faced was adapting to the many cultural differences I encounter here every day. Time is viewed differently here, as more flexible and less definite. Though class officially started at 8:00 a.m., my cooperating teacher and students came at least fifteen minutes later every day. School schedules are also much more flexible in Costa Rica. Class could be cancelled for any number of reasons, and often was. Finally, my cooperating teacher often made discriminatory jokes that I found offensive. This made me extremely uncomfortable, but it is culturally acceptable to make these remarks here, and it was something I had to tolerate. Although there were other differences, these three were the hardest for me to adapt to. Doing so taught me patience and tolerance, which are undeniably useful to any educator. It was hard at first to adjust to the way INA, my placement school, is structured. I taught the same students all day, from 8:00 a.m. until 3:30 p.m. This was a drastic change from my middle school placement, where I only taught for fifty minute periods. I struggled to plan three-hour lessons (one before lunch and one after) that held the attention of my students and contained a wide variety of activities. Because I had little access to Internet and I could only print documents from 4:00 p.m. until 5:00 p.m., it was difficult to find information, activities, and materials to keeps my students engaged and teach them about the topic to be discussed. This lack of resources obliged me to be innovative and creative with my lesson plans, and this will surely benefit me in the future.

These last sixteen weeks have taught me a lot. I have had to adapt to unexpected circumstances and I have grown a lot as an individual and as a teacher. I entered this experience without many of the tools and skills I needed to be successful in the classroom. However, my students and cooperating teachers have taught me many things, and although I know that I still have a lot to learn, I feel prepared to enter the classroom as a licensed teacher.