The Second Language Teaching

The first semester of Mrs. Grant’s tenth-grade Latin class was devoted to vocabulary memorization and sentence completion, leaving me with memories of chiming, “Matella est mater. Flavius est pater.”

Although I had never studied a foreign language before, I remember thinking, “Even if Latin is a dead language, there must be a more lively way of learning and teaching it.” I have since traveled extensively, lived in other countries, and learned other languages. As my current passion for teaching developed, I often thought of Mrs. Grant’s Latin class as the antithesis of what I aimed for my classroom to be like.

At age twenty-four, I was building a career as a restaurateur and earning a lucrative living when I rediscovered my passion for learning and for teaching through evening courses in French and seminars in teaching English as a second language. In particular, I realized my profound interest in teaching English to speakers of other languages, and so I made the difficult but ultimately invaluable decision to study in the Second Language Teaching program at the University of Ottawa.

In this program, my interest evolved from a focus on teaching young adults to teaching adults at the post-secondary level. Opportunities to apply my knowledge in the classroom, in combination with my experiences learning two languages in foreign contexts, have served as integral guides to the development of my own approach to teaching second languages.

In the classroom, it is particularly important for me to understand the second language learner’s point of view and use humor and real-life situations to get a point across. Yet a teacher's work goes beyond these techniques. In order to further understand the political, economical, social, and cultural issues underlying educational policies and procedures, I wish to join the Master of Education program at Columbia University. This foundation will serve as the critical bridge needed to further my career as an educator.

Through my undergraduate studies in second language teaching, I developed my interest in pursuing research on the question of how sociocultural factors impact awareness in second language design, implementation, and assessment in a multicultural community versus those in a culturally homogeneous community. In my experience, moreover, sociocultural factors affect schooling in a variety of areas, including culture, gender identities, power roles, class markers and social markers. Research in this area as part of my studies at Columbia will therefore help fill a pressing, practical educational need.

Finally, while conducting this research, I hope to expand my analytical, statistical and examination skills, and later to bring to my teaching an increased awareness of issues currently affecting educational pedagogy. The Master of Education program will therefore provide me with the educational foundation to fully realize my professional and personal goals.

點評：

文章開篇點出第二語言教學的精髓。隨后闡述了自己對這個專業(yè)興趣產(chǎn)生的原因，并從個人興趣轉(zhuǎn)移談到了第二語言教學的教學方法，并且從不斷的實踐中對教法有了不斷的深入。對于自己技能的提高過程給了一定的說明。最后在實踐中發(fā)現(xiàn)了第二語言教學的精髓所在就是“社會與文化的因素如何影響第二語言在那些類似同等的文化團體中的計劃”。

文章主要讓讀者能了解到，他對該專業(yè)的興趣并且為這一興趣作了哪些工作，而且逐漸專業(yè)經(jīng)歷的積累又讓他明白了該專業(yè)精髓所在，而此時又明確了未來專業(yè)學習的方向。作者沒有象其他作者只是詳細的描寫一些過程，是深度對教學方法進行了說明，而第二語言教學正式看重申請人在教學方法的鉆研和興趣。

這篇文章主要的成功之處在于能從專業(yè)自身的特點出發(fā)，結(jié)合自己的興趣明確未來專業(yè)學習方向。

譯文：

第二語言教學

Grant夫人第十級的拉丁課第一學期的單詞技藝和句子完成，給我留下了很深的印象，“Matella est mater. Flavius est pater.”。

雖然在這之前我從來沒有學習過外國語，我記得那個思想“即使拉丁語是死語言，仍然有更活躍的方式來學習和教授它”。之后，我進行了廣闊的旅游，生活在了其他國家并且學習了其他語言。對教學方式挖掘的熱情，讓我經(jīng)常試圖讓我的課堂成為Mrs. Grant的拉丁語課堂那樣。

在我24歲的時候，我是一個參餐館老板。那個時候當我通過夜校法語和英語作為第二語言教學的學習讓我重新發(fā)現(xiàn)我對學習和教學的熱情。重要的是，我意識到我對給非英語母語的人教授英語有濃厚的興趣。因此我做了一個雖然很艱難但是很堅定并很有價值的決定，我要去Ottawa大學去學習第二語言教育專業(yè)。

在這里面的學習，我的興趣從教小孩轉(zhuǎn)移到教成人。結(jié)合我學習兩種語言的經(jīng)驗，我很好的提高我的對第二語言教育的能力的提升。我在課堂上的知識和我前后學習兩種外語的經(jīng)驗，給我自己第二語言的教授方法的發(fā)展有完整的指引。

在教室里，了解第二語言初學者的觀點、用幽默和真誠達到共識對我來說尤其的重要。但是教師的工作還不僅僅是這些技巧，為了進一步更好地了解基于政治，經(jīng)濟，社會和文化制定出的教育政策和程序，我請求進入哥倫比亞大學攻讀教育碩士。這個階段是必需的、迫切的對于進一步促進我成為一個教育家的職業(yè)生涯。

通過我在大學期間對第二語言教學的學習，我更進一步的拓展了我的興趣對于從事研究這樣一個問題：社會與文化的因素如何影響第二語言在那些類似同等的文化團體中的計劃，執(zhí)行和估價。以我的體會而言，社會與文化的因素推動著學校教育涉及了多個領(lǐng)域，朝著多元化發(fā)展；包括文明，性別身份，權(quán)力角色，班級標兵和社會標兵。因此作為我在哥倫比亞大學的學習的一部分，研究這個領(lǐng)域是緊迫的，實用的，必須的。

最后，當開始這個研究的時候，我希望擴展我的分析，統(tǒng)計和考察技巧，這個教育學碩士項目將提供給我一個教育基礎(chǔ)對于完全的實現(xiàn)我的我的職業(yè)和個人目標。