Whew…

I am an ESL fellow part of the New York City Teaching Fellowship which means, assuming I can get a job, I will be teaching English as a second language in some grade between K-12, in either Brooklyn, Manhattan or the Bronx. Usually they require ESL fellows to have 1 year to 6 months of prior experience, but they had a shortage supposedly, and I had requested to teach ESL, so here I am.

I don’t begin training until Sept 24 (which, coincidentally is also when I learn how I did on the teacher certification exams…*sigh*), but I have already begun studying how to teach ESL (just the theories right now), and I’ve started reading their Guidebook for Teaching for Student Achievement. Boy, let me tell you – they really expect a lot from us. I mean, I knew we’d be in high need schools with students who are rather far behind compared to other students in their grade level, but wow. We are being asked to set inspiring but challenging goals that we carry out with a sense of urgency and “extraordinary effort”.

This is going to be a rough first year, but I wanted a challenge, so I guess it’ll be what I need. I just hope I’ll be what the students need in a teacher.