Yeji Lee

TESOL240
On-going Professional Development
This generation is a learning generation. If we are not learning, we cannot survive in this
world. Everything is moving very fast and changes very quickly. Teachers roles are increasingly
getting more crucial, especially since the world is getting globalized; learning languages is
becoming an essential and significant work. Parents try to make their children speak at least
two languages, and adults try to learn at least one more language. Among the all languages,
English has been the most important language in the world and still is. Nowadays there are a
number of universities which have TESOL programs, and there are a lot of professional
organizations and official websites for TESOL. People who are studying TESOL can always find
good sources easily.
1. Professional Organizations
The TESOL professional organizations have local, state, national, and international levels.
TESOL International Association consists of a network of over 60,000 English language
teaching professionals worldwide. Most members of these associations are the leaders in the
field. They attend the annual TESOL International Convention and English Language Expo. They
contribute to building English education. In order to be a member, they need topay a
membership fee. Once they register and pay the membership fee, they can be members. The
cost depends on the membership level. Students pay $35, retired professionals pay $57, global
professionals pay $35, new professionals pay $60, and professional members pay $98. There
are 21 interest sections in the TESOL community. They are TESOLs special interest groups,

including International Teaching Assistance, Bilingual Education, English as a Foreign

Language, Elementary Education, Applied Linguistics and so on. Through each of these
sections, people can find anything they are interested in. The 21 TESOL interest sections
provide a number of leadership opportunities with online networking, professional
development, and shared knowledge and research in various areas of practice.
In the USA, Hawaii TESOL is famous. Hawaii TESOL is a community of professionals
teaching English as a Second Language (ESL). It offers ESL professionals in Hawaii with many
opportunities for professional development and networking. They share their own experiences
and good advice with each other. In order to join, people pay $25 for the membership fee, but
as a student, we only pay $15. They meet four to five times every year and it is open to anyone
with a membership. The purpose of the meetings is to have the opportunity to meet other ESL
professionals, to promote networking, and develop their Academic TESOL field. As members,
they can receive travel grants to attend Hawaii TESOL annual conferences. Members can also
participate in the annual Practical Workshops and Conference, and give presentations or
workshops. I went to the Hawaii TESOL Conference with many BYUH students in September
2013. We all shared our teaching skill ideas and discussed them as a group. That was a good
time to get to know about a variety of TESOL field and what the Hawaii TESOL was.
For me, I want to go back to Korea to teach English, but nobody knows the future. I
would like to prepare for the future. If I join the TESOL association, I can prepare for my career
wherever I go. Through the TESOL organization, I can network with professionals all over the
world, so I can learn from them about not only different cultures but also variety of teaching
skills.

2. Professional journals
There are numerous valuable projects, articles, and documents about TESOL. For my
personal opinion, one of the most important things is teachers characteristics. Sometimes,
teachers perform parents roles to the students. I believe that for the students learning,
teachers attributes or style to teach are very important. Since I was young, I have been thinking
about teachers attributes all the time. Students tend to have big expectations for their
teachers. Students expect good characteristics from their teachers. I want to be a teacher who
cares about the students, and is sensitive to students needs. In the magazine The Teaching
English Forum, there are lots of good tips and articles. This publication is very professional, and
it is for the teachers and learners of English as a foreign language. The Teaching English Forum
has a publication and website as well, and it is well known as an English journal in the U.S.
Department of State. In one of the journals, there is the article, Ten Characteristics of a Good
Teacher. According to Miller (1987),
I want a teacher who will take an interest in me as a personone who will try to
discover discussion topics that interest me. When I was teaching, one of the first things I
did was to try to find out what my students interests were: hobbies, past employment,
family, travel, etc. The easiest, most accessible area of conversation is oneself. The
initial and intermediate stages of development for the language student do not abound
with opportunities for coherent self-expression.
I believe that teachers role is very important to the children as much as parents roles. If I
become a teacher, I would like to be a teacher who has not only good teaching skills, but also
good characteristics. I want to communicate with the students individually and get to know

them. When teachers teach like this, students will be willing to learn and participate in the
lesson as well.
In the learning process, homework is as important as a lesson. Students tend to take
homework lightly, but actually, doing homework is very essential process to learn. Since I came
to BYUH, I always have homework. Sometimes, teachers seem to ask us to do too much
homework, but every time I do those, I always feel that I learn something though the
homework. I found out the website, Essential Teacher which is from the TESOL International
Association. It is for the audiences who work in English education, especially for TESOL
community and anybody who is a member. There are various articles and resources, and it has
a publication and website. Hunter argued that (as cited in Zacarian, 2009, p9).
Guided practice is the process by which a teacher provides students with the supports
that they need to complete a task well. To create a guided at-home experience, we must
provide activities and tasks that involve step-by-step instructions that mirror the
multiple practice sessions that have occurred in class.
Doing the homework is one of the fundamental processes to learn for the students. It helps
student have a better understanding about the lesson and apply the knowledge for the real use.
That could be a preview or review of the class. When I will be a teacher, I will give assignments
every day.
One of ideas that I plan to apply for my future class is teaching with singing songs In
TESL Reporter. I thought that was a very good idea. For the childrens teaching level, children
would like singing songs and they can learn language without thinking too hard. Through the
repeating of song, they acquire the English lyrics unconsciously. According to Ottoson (2011), l

learned that songs whose lyrics can be linked to clear gestures or body language can be directly
understood, quickly learned, and easily recalled later on. While I initially used this technique
with primary school children, my colleagues tell me that it would work well with beginning level
language learners of all ages. (p. 84). Moreover, he mentioned how students can learn
language by singing songs by explaining specific steps. This is very interesting and I would love
to try it. I think students can focus on and have fun with this type of learning.
A fourth professional journal is EL Gazette. This is the newspaper for English language
and international education. There are some useful newspapers and professionals opinions. It
seems like it is a private a publication. This is about global language journal of TEFL. It is written
for the audiences who study in TEFL and anybody who is registered, and it has a publication and
website as well. Among some articles, I chose the lesson plan about invitation understanding.
It explains about what kind of questions are good, and how to lead the class. An activity
guideline is designed to help students writing and responding. It looks very systematic. This
might be useful for my first year of teaching. I can organize my lesson plan and get help from
the details.
3. Professional Websites
There are some good internet websites provide a resource for English teaching and learning.
Essberger, J. (1997-2013). www.englishclub.com
English club is an English learning and teaching website. There are quite a few genres to
learn English. Overall, they have three parts for three users. The first is learning English for
learners, the second is teaching English for teachers, and the third is English club for members.

First, for the English learner, there are listening, speaking, reading, writing, grammar, and
pronunciation. For fun, there are ESL quizzes and games. They have lots of resources from
alphabets for children to business English for the adults. Various ages can try it and enjoy it.
Second, for the teachers, there are teaching lessons, teaching tips, teacher forums, and ESL
jobs. Those are all helpful sources to teach English as a teacher, and it is not too long, so it is
just not hard to read. There are a lot of choices; people can get an idea for their real class and
teaching.
Third, they have a members page for anyone. Through this page, people join and make a
blog, and upload videos or pictures. They often have conversations with each other online and
create a small society for network system.
www.lextutor.ca
Anyone who is studying in University might know what lextutor is. The lextutor website is
very famous for the academic English learning. For academic writing, students use and visit
lextutor a lot. There are vocabulary quizzes, tests, and vocabprofiles. When students want to
check their Academic Word Vocabulary, they just paste the writing and check the percentage of
their AWL. It says what the normal words and what the academic words are, so students are
easily know. There is also vocabulary quiz which is very useful. They can guess the word
according to context. This website helps people to use more Academic words. Through this
study, students can check their vocabulary ability and improve their English skills.
Sperling, D. www.esclafe.com
This website is a private internet source and it introduces itself, The internets meeting
place for ESL + EFL teachers + students from around the world. Dave Sperling is a publisher this

caf who graduated with a Masters Degree in Applied Linguistics at California State University.
He made this web-cafe to distribute more opportunities for people. This web-caf provides
many job opportunities and more practical knowledge for teachers. It has a number of learning
activities and studies for both students and teachers. The funny thing is it has a slang section, so
that people can learn slang as well. It has a chat central which is online chatting, so people can
communicate with each other. This website looks like Daves own blog as well. He uploads his
pictures that people can see. For those who are looking for a job in English education, it might
be helpful.
4. Miscellaneous.
I love to read all the journals and articles which were written by professionals. These are
very helpful. Everything has good teaching materials and characteristics that I need to learn.
They were truly professionals. I hope I can someday write journals and articles like them. Lastly,
I wanted to find one more TESOL journal. The title was A Role for English Language Teachers in
Trauma Healing. The reason why I chose this article is that probably I can be in this situation
someday.
Teachers are faced with many difficult circumstances. When we face students who have
trauma, Medley (2012) argued, Teachers must work on community building in a classroom,
such that the teacher and learners increasingly become more deeply acquainted with each
other as whole persons. Community building is part of the work of creating a safe for language
learners. The important thing that teachers can do for the trauma healing is being with those
students and helps them feel warm. We can always encourage them and help them.

There are lots of teachers and many ways to be an English teacher. TESOL can get
numerous help from a variety of different positions. Teachers are always glad to help, and
willing to share what they earned and learned. If we want to know something, what we need to
do is just click the mouse, get the information, and contact professionals in the field. We can
always find any source on the internet very easily, so once we decide to become a good teacher
or ideal teacher, the potential is infinite.

Reference
Medley, M. (2010). A Role for English Language Teachers in Trauma Healing. TESOL Journal, 3(1),
110-116.
Retrieved from
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/tesj.6/pdf
Miller, P. (1987). Ten Characteristic of a Good Teacher. The English Teaching Forum, 25(1), 3638. Retrieved from
http://americanenglish.state.gov/files/ae/resource_files/50_1_11_pp36-38_reflections_ten.pdf
Ottoson, K. (2011). Simple as Do-Re-Mi: Using Body language to Facilitate the Teaching of Songs.
TESL Reporter, 44(1&2), 84-91.
Retrieved from
https://ojs.lib.byu.edu/spc/index.php/TESL/article/view/32433/30608
Zacarian, D. (2009). Making Homework Part of the Lesson. ET Essential Teacher, 6(1), 9-10.
Retrieved from
http://www.tesol.org/docs/pdf/12835.pdf?sfvrsn=2