 My name is mega and I am a York University student. Hi everyone. I'm Denise Juarez. I'm at York's teaching English to speakers of other languages program. Currently I'm doing my certificate here, but I did do my undergrad as well in York University in gender and women's studies. My name is Brandon and my background is Canadian and Chinese. I only speak English, but I'm trying to learn Japanese, so I'm in the process of learning that. I'm doing linguistics like for my major and I'm part of the test program as well. I wanted to get some experience for teaching because I want to do the jet program after I get my bachelor's degree. So I would like to, and the jet program, if no one knows, it's like teaching English in Japan. So part of the reason why I just I came back to school is because of that because I actually graduated already with a game design certificate. During the whole pandemic, it was kind of difficult to reach out to someone who had the same interests as me. So I kind of missed going back to school. So I think going back to school really helped with that as well. But connections and mostly also much needed knowledge to be able to teach someone in the way that they deserve to be taught. Yeah. I'm hoping to learn how to become a better educator. I've always wanted to be a teacher and so I think that being in being placed in a different context really drives home the different methodologies that we use in the classroom and how important they are to truly understand. I've had the pleasure of working with three different mentor teachers. So I've gotten to see how their teaching styles kind of differ for each class that they were teaching. So a couple of our teachers were teaching for the college-teen-a-versity kind of classes, but one of them was also teaching about like speaking in particular. So each one of them had different teaching styles that I feel like I could also implement in my future classes. The students in my class, I was kind of surprised that they actually knew a lot more English than I thought, but that could also just be because of the CLB levels they were around five and six. And they're all pretty excited to move on, like change your lives around because most of them are from an Afghan background. So when they came to Canada or they wanted to come to Canada to have like a better life, maybe get some nice jobs and just kind of live a better life in some ways. I've learned how important it is to build connections with your students and how important it is to see them for who they are and their identities. Especially because the ESL classroom is so diverse, you meet students from so many different backgrounds. When you build those connections, again, it only benefits the students. It creates a warm welcoming environment in which they can really foster their learning. She knows what the students like. She's been with them for quite a few, I'd say quite a while now, and she's pretty knowledgeable about all of the Canadian requirements that one needs to kind of settle down and get used to living here. So she could share her experience with her previous students or with her students and kind of make them feel more comfortable around the set up and with her. To never stop learning. So again, my mentor teacher is on both sides. She's doing research and she's also teaching the classroom and every time I've been to practicum she's always emphasized how important it is to continue to be flexible as an educator so that we can look for different strategies and different methods to help the students learn better and to grasp the content. I asked them for their advice and many of them kind of advice that it's going to be a tough journey, but at the end of the day you have to remember that this is what you enjoy doing and you're helping people out. It's kind of like they define it as kind of like a vocation where you're not really in it for the money. You're more in it to help people become better at something they wish to improve on or to develop their skills. That they're all very individual and that they all, again, they're diverse. I have not met one student who is the same. They all come with different opinions and different values and from different places. And as a result it creates such a unique learning environment for them. And it creates a lot of interesting conversations even regards to the class content. Everybody's so respectful in the classroom. They're all very open to listening to new opinions, which is really cool. Oh, I loved getting to see them improve because as an immigrant myself, I don't remember English learning that much because I immigrated to Canada at such a young age. So to see other people learn English again is kind of a good perspective for me to keep in mind moving forward as a teacher. I feel like it's always a way to keep me grounded, kind of keep in mind, kind of like hurdles and struggles that people would have to go through to learn another language, right? The Ling program helps a lot with resettlement because a lot of the lessons that I've been part of that she's been teaching them is firstly, it's like the geography of Canada like some of the cultural things around it. It's like I think one of the previous lessons is just trying to figure out like where each province is and who's the leader of each province in the capital and then she also tested them on special, like who the people in power are in Canada, like our Prime Minister, the Deputy Prime Minister, people like that. I was really nervous and excited for the placement. Actually, I was waiting to get placed immediately. But I was more nervous because the idea of meeting new people kind of scares me, but I think the new experience of getting to watch teachers teach and kind of seeing it as myself in the future, seeing it in the point of view of like maybe I get to experience that myself in the future made me less nervous about the experience overall. Maybe try to interact more with the groups, even though I did interact quite a bit. A lot of the time I'm mostly just watching and like seeing what they want to do. But I think maybe I could have taken a bit more opportunities to try to blend in with them a bit more just to get to know them better. But other than that, I think I think it's pretty good so far. To not be scared of practicum and to walk into it with an open mind. It almost feels more formal to be in a classroom setting. And I think that's probably what's most intimidating is that it almost feels like there's no flexibility when you walk in. But as I've experienced it, it's a there's a lot more wiggle room than you think there is. It's a good program. It's really good experience. I do like all the different experiences I've encountered and I think it'll help me a lot in the future. So thank you. I think just talking with your mentor teacher is the biggest thing. I think that's what helped me the most is one, having a meeting with her beforehand and then talking about her syllabus and her course outline. And the other thing is talking to the students. At first the students were a little bit apprehensive of me. But as I've been in the classroom and I've been asking them questions and giving them an idea of why I'm there and why I want to be there. You know, just talking to them, you get you get a better idea of the world and how it impacts them. I wish I took things slower. I feel like because I was so nervous and anxious throughout all of it, I couldn't fully grasp what was being taught to me at points. I don't think that this like my learning about being a teacher is going to stop after these two years. I think it's gonna have to keep growing to kind of adjust to how students themselves develop throughout the years, right? They're access to the technologies and stuff like that.