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Originally from: New Orleans, Louisiana
Graduate Program: Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL) and certificate in Language Program Administration (LPA)
Term: 2nd year
Expected Graduation Date: May 2008
Age: 25
Undergraduate School: Southeastern Louisiana University
Undergraduate Major: Spanish
Archive
Mar. 29, 2008
Feb. 27, 2008
Feb. 05, 2008
Jan. 24, 2008
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April 7, 2008
Free Time in Monterey
People always ask, “What do you do in your free time?” Considering the location of Monterey, they assume that I’m some kind of beach bunny drinking margaritas with little umbrellas and trying to study and tan at the same time. The aforementioned scene cannot be farther than the truth. And free time, I mean what in the world is that???
Honestly speaking, students in the TESOL program do not have as much free time as some of the other programs at MIIS. We have a lot, a lot, a lot of reading and tons of group projects, so our time is very precious to us. Nonetheless, you have to make some time for yourself so that the words don’t start moving while you’re reading your articles J. Although I am not from a huge city, New Orleans is quite a bit bigger than Monterey and there are many more things to do there than in Monterey. But, Monterey and the surrounding areas all have their own personalities.
One of my favorite places is Carmel, a little town about 10 minutes from Monterey. And I really love the shopping!!! There are little boutiques everywhere, and yes many of them are too expensive for my budget, but window shopping is free. Carmel also has a really pretty beach and some good restaurants. It’s really nice to just walk around and relax when the weather is nice. Big Sur is a little farther, but it’s also very pretty and a must-see when you come here. And of course, there is Pebble Beach and Point Lobos National Park, all really beautiful. Even farther up the road is San José and San Francisco (one of my favorite places to visit).
Now on to Monterey. Monterey has a lot of really good restaurants and cultural festivals throughout the year. Two of my favorite restaurants are Old Monterey Café and The Trailside Café. They have the most wonderful breakfasts. Oh, and Papa Chano’s has some really good and cheap Mexican food. Being that I’m from New Orleans, I love the Monterey Jazz Festival and also the Reggae Festival. Then there’s the Aquarium, Fisherman’s Wharf, Cannery Row, the beach, and all kinds of other little places that you can discover while walking.
So again, while time and money are precious, it’s important to get out and about every once in a while. I sometimes have to force myself so that I don’t drown in a sea of paper writing. Get out, meet and greet, and try to enjoy yourself while you’re here!
March 29, 2008
Three Months of Freedom
Oh summertime, no school, no work, no studying, no stress. Well, not really. During the winter break and spring semester, it’s really good to start cataloguing summer jobs that you’re interested in because many of their application deadlines will be in early March, late April. And believe me, second semester is even more demanding than first semester! But anyway, I knew that I wasn’t going to be able to leave Monterey for the summer because I needed to be able to work full time to pay for bills and stuff. So, I was one of the few who were “stuck” in Monterey for the entire summer.
But honestly, it wasn’t as bad as it seems. Although the summer is quite cold and dreary, I was able to get a lot of experience and take a TESOL class while I was here. Firstly, the Practicum class (which is your student teaching) is one of the only classes offered during the summer, but if you can do it in the summer, it’s one less class that you have to worry about in the following semester. So I was happy to get that class out of the way. So, I did my student teaching with the Intensive ESL program here on campus. At first, I was just a student teacher, but my co-teacher had a family emergency and had to quit, so the director hired me as the official teacher. I taught Beginning Oral Communication Monday, Wednesday, Friday from 9-11. Now if that isn’t enough, one of my professors, Dr. Kathi Bailey, hired me as her editorial assistant for a new book that she was writing. So my summer was definitely very busy!
I really think that it’s very important to get as much teaching experience as possible while in this program because it gives you a chance to try out all the new things that you have learned in the past year. At first, I didn’t think that I would be able to teach a two hour class by myself since I had never done it before. But, it’s amazing the ideas you come up with. During the year, whenever we had workshops or micro lessons, I always made sure to keep the activities and lesson plans. So now I have a whole binder of all types of materials that I can use in my classroom and this binder was a life-saver, especially when you’re short on time or you’ve just plain run out of ideas.
I thoroughly enjoyed my class and students and I was actually able to teach for three more sessions with the program. I do wish that I would have branched out and tried to teach a writing or reading class, but I am so happy to have had the experience. It made me much more confident to know that I can go into a classroom and teach well. As students, we have tons of opportunities to teach, so make sure you take advantage of them because they definitely take care of us!
March 15, 2008
Second Semester
Thinking back on my first year, I remember winter break being such a welcome relief to the fall semester, but we all knew that it wouldn’t last forever. And little did I know that second semester was going to be even more demanding than first semester (in a good way of course). But before I start talking about my second semester, I wanted to say that it’s a good idea to be on the look out for summer jobs while you’re at home relaxing. During the semester itself, it’s hard to keep up with all of the employment postings, but during the break, you should really take the time to start bookmarking different websites and jobs that you like. Of course, it’s even possible to do an internship during the break which is really good too. The more experience you can get, the better.
So when second semester started, I still hadn’t decided if I would stay for an extra semester and complete the certificate in Language Program Administration (LPA). I still took the required classes, just in case, and they are really good to have even if you don’t decide to finish the certificate. That semester, I took the following classes: Second Language Acquisition (SLA), Structure of English, Introduction to LPA, Language Teacher Education, Curriculum and Materials Design, and Language Assessment. Being that this was my second semester, I was much more prepared to handle the reading and projects. Not to say that the work was any easier (because it definitely wasn’t), but I really learned how to prioritize and manage my time wisely.
I really enjoyed Structure of English since I feel that I lack a lot of the understanding of English grammar. For native speakers, it’s sometimes very difficult to answer grammar questions because we never really learned English grammar explicitly. But this class helped me gain more confidence in that area and plus we have to buy a book called The Grammar Book, which is like the Bible of English grammar. I would say that Second Language Acquisition was the most important because of all the theoretical knowledge that we learned (which is extremely important for your position paper in your final semester). I also enjoyed the Language Teacher Education course and the Curriculum and Materials Design courses. In both of these classes, we had a true population of students where we were able to create a syllabus or curriculum for them. The great part about these assignments is that we are actually able to use them in our future teaching and many of my classmates utilized them during their summer internships.
As the semester winds down, you’ll undoubtedly hear about people going to all corners of the world, but there are also plenty of teaching opportunities in Monterey (although it’s not the most spectacular place to be in the summer compared to France). But again, leave time in your schedule to search for available employment so that you’re not going crazy when the semester ends because believe me, you will have more than enough to go crazy about!
February 27, 2008
And the Madness Ends
Well…Temporarily
December is an interesting month. While you’re excited about the fact that school will be ending, you’re also wondering how you’re going to compress the fourteen projects and papers due into ten days. Impossible, you say? Well, me and my classmates are here so we did it somehow. For the first semester, my favorite class was Sociolinguistics taught by Dr. Lynn Goldstein (I don’t think I’ve mentioned this before, but we call all of our professors by their first names. Yeah, a little awkward at first, but you quickly get used to it). Anyway, we learned about how factors in society, such as cultural norms, expectations, gender, ethnicity, status, etc., affect the ways in which languages are used. We also learned about different dialects and varieties of language and people’s attitudes towards different dialects and accents (think about a Southern dialect and accent as compared to a Midwestern one). We also examined specific social and political issues dealing with English, such as Singlish (Singaporean English), and its status in the respective cultures. This class was especially helpful in dispelling myths and stereotypes that we may have about languages.
Now, of course I didn’t have a least favorite class, so perhaps we can talk about that subject personally. So let’s talk about the professors. Our professors are absolutely awesome. They are all practicing professionals in the TESOL/TFL field and treat us like colleagues rather than lowly graduate students. And all of them are superstars (in the TESOL field, of course). One of the most important things to remember about your first semester is that the professors are there to help you and you should take advantage of them. I know that I was intimidated at first about approaching them, but they truly welcome our ideas and questions. It’s really good to talk to those professors who are experts in your field of interest, for example materials design or second language acquisition (SLA).
So what should you do during the break? RELAX, RELAX, RELAX!!! I can’t express that enough. There are a few CALL (Computer Assisted Language Learning) or LPA (Language Program Administration) classes offered during the winterim break or you may find a cool teaching internship, but also make time for yourselves because spring semester can be even more demanding than first semester. I went back home to New Orleans for three weeks and tried to load up on as much fried chicken, gumbo, jambalaya, and strawberry daiquiris as I could! Oh, and don’t forget to order your books before the first day of school!
The attached pictures are of myself, Shelley Chang, and David Chiesa (both TESOL students) on our way to a Toga Party, trying to get some fun in before the semester ends.
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February 5, 2008
And the Madness Begins - The First Semester
I arrived in Monterey two weeks before school started to get acquainted with the city before school started (yes, my mom and I drove from New Orleans to Monterey, something I will never do again). I had researched places to stay while still in New Orleans, but there was only so much that I could do since I was so far away. So we stayed at a hotel close to school and I started looking for apartments or house shares. I found a place on my second day from the Classifieds conference on the MIIS website (a website you’re allowed to access once you have been admitted). While I don’t live within walking distance to school, I live in a nearby city called Seaside, which is really like only 7 minutes away.
During those two weeks, I was able to change my driver’s license and license plates on my car, get my orientation stuff before orientation started and joyride through Monterey, Seaside, and Salinas (since I knew I wouldn’t be doing too much of that once school started). Now, orientation was a breeze until all of our professor’s presented their syllabi and all of the newcomers realized that we wouldn’t be relaxing the weekend before school started, rather we had reading assignments due for our first day of class!
For the first semester, I took all of the required courses - Principles and Practices, Sociolinguistics, Educational Research Methods, Introduction to Classroom Observation, Language Analysis - and one elective course, Language Teacher Supervision. The Supervision class was a specific course for the certificate in Language Program Administration (LPA) and at the time, I was still contemplating whether or not I wanted to complete the entire certificate. So I figured that it was better that I went ahead and take it because it would help me either way.
One of the biggest differences I encountered between my courses at MIIS and those during undergrad was the amount of reading in each course. The reading load is massive and you really have to learn to delegate your time in order to read and remember what you just read. We also completed a lot of group projects and we were probably quite tired of each other by the time the semester endedJ. Nevertheless, my classmates and I were able to build a great security network and community and these are friends that I’m sure I’ll have for the rest of my life.
So here are some words of wisdom to survive your first semester:
- Sleep regularly (if possible), eat good, and drink water. Sometimes you really have to make a conscious effort to do these things.
- Take time for yourself even if it’s only thirty minutes.
- You will never finish all of the reading. It’s better to read two things and remember what you read than read 10 things and not be able to remember anything.
- Pick your group members carefully. While you may be the most lovable person and not want to hurt anyone’s feelings, some people are just not meant to work with each other. Therefore, take note and remember that a project takes much longer to complete when your ideas are on opposite sides of the spectrum.
- Finally, have fun, be silly, talk loud, jump around, dance in the street, swim in the amazingly cold water, and anything else that makes you happy!
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January 24, 2008
When I first arrived in Monterey in August 2006, I asked myself an important question: What made me choose this school? I am hundreds of miles away from home, the weather is a little weird, the city is so small, everybody is a vegetarian or health freak, the school is freakishly expensive, and I’ve already done four years so why in the world am I coming back for more torture?????
Well let’s backtrack a little. My name is LaTesha Renèe Charbonnet and I am about to be in my final semester at the Monterey Institute. I am 25 years old and am originally from New Orleans, LA. I received my bachelor’s in Spanish and
International Relations from Southeastern Louisiana University in May 2004 and originally thought that I wanted to become a translator. I studied abroad to improve my Spanish during undergrad and after graduation I went to Verona, Italy to teach English for a year.
I found out about the Monterey Institute because of my interest in the Translation and Interpretation program and my mother and I visited the Institute in April 2003. However, I quickly realized that Translation and Interpretation was not something that I could imagine myself doing for the rest of my life. After I returned home from Italy in 2005, I got a job as a high school Spanish teacher, but also realized that I preferred teaching English rather than Spanish. Thus, I applied to the TESOL program and started in September 2006.
So, what made me choose this school? Yes, I am far away from home, but I’ve definitely been farther. Yes, the weather is definitely weird. You will be surprised how cold the summer can be, but I am from New Orleans where sometimes you think the devil should be sitting next to you in the summer. Yes, the city is small, but it’s cozy and has tons of character (and San Francisco and San José are really close anyway). Yes, it does seem that everyone is a health freak, but I’m from a place where we live to eat rather than eat to live. Yes, the school is freakishly expensive, but believe me, it is definitely worth it. And finally, yes, four years have passed, but this is what I want to do, so I have to do what I have to do in order to fulfill my goals.
I am very proud to say that I am a part of one of the most respected schools in the nation. All of my professors are well respected, practicing professionals in their fields. We are not treated as lowly graduate students, but rather as colleagues. Is the program demanding? YES! Do our professors expect 300%? YES! Do we give them 300%? I know I do! So, for me, there was no other choice and I’m definitely happy about it.
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