Concluding Thoughts

Obtaining the opportunity to student teach abroad has brought me many experiences that will influence me as a person and future teacher in the 21st century. The entire placement in Taiwan was going to bring me into a completely different world; I had no idea what all I was going to get the opportunity to experience. I have felt myself make great accomplishments personally; completing this placement has really made me grow as a person. Being thrown into a totally different environment causes you to solve problems, go with the flow, mentally grow, communicate often, become more independent, and be okay with making mistakes. I felt a survival instinct almost kick in, making it less difficult to adjust to the potential culture shock.  These are all attributes that I have practiced using throughout this experience and have watched grow within myself; making them the real souvenir I am bringing home. At the beginning of my seventh week here in Taiwan some events unfolded back home that turned my entire current and future life upside down. It alone was probably the hardest thing I have ever had to deal with, and here I was student teaching halfway around the world. I had a few really rough days, I will not lie, but once gaining a positive perspective on the situation and reaching out to my friends, I was able to eventually start the process of growing from it. Through everything over the course of this trip, good and bad; I now feel I have the training, mental capacity, and strength to overcome almost any obstacle that I will face in my future, it is a very satisfying and empowering feeling. Something else I was able to conceptualize during my experience, was being the odd one out. I got to feel what it was like to be the one that was experiencing the lash back of the language and cultural barrier. I was the new one, the different one, the one that everyone looked at and I could not understand a word people were saying or a thing people were doing. Although I was the one that everyone was admiring, I still felt singled out; this feeling is something I will be able to connect to, in order to empathize with students that might be in the same boat in my future classrooms.

Along with giving me perspective through the lens of a student, I have had many growing opportunities from the teacher perspective. I am only teaching English classes, at first, it made me concerned that I would quickly lose my sharpness to teach in other subjects like math, science, and reading. However, I soon realized that I might be teaching only English classes, but I am still utilizing various teaching strategies. Not only am I getting to practice various strategies, I am learning completely new ones that are not so common in our culture that is used more here. Another benefit to the teaching set-up here is that I get exposure to many grade levels at one time. I can compare and contrast different strategies and how they work in each of the grades. A final aspect that I have taken away from this experience in regards to my teaching career is making changes to my lesson plans and being able to re-implement them. Since teaching in an English classroom, I only see my first and second graders once a week and my sixth graders twice a week; it is similar to our students in the States only going to PE, art, or music once a week. That being said, I only plan about four lessons a week, teaching them all week long. I had no experience with this type of schedule prior to this and I was unsure how I would feel about it. Teaching the same thing over all week you think would get repetitive, but it all depends on the way you look at it; I started taking advantage of the opportunity to alter my lessons after teaching it once to make it more engaging and more effective for the next class. I was seeing a huge difference between the first and last time a lesson was taught, they looked completely different! After practicing this for a while, I was able to make the drastic alterations to my first lesson of the week rather than my second or third because I was familiar with the classes and strategies that did or did not work. This skill that I have practiced a lot here and one will be extremely beneficial to my future teaching practices. Each of these skills and attributes is ones that I have gained from my experiences teaching abroad, they are the main contributing factors that will shape me as a person and future educator in the 21st century.

After spending eight weeks living and teaching in a Taiwanese classroom and environment, I have found myself understanding the culture so much better. My new knowledge and experience of the culture has instilled a bit of confidence in my ability to relay that knowledge to others. This is a great opportunity not only for me but for my future students, I will be able to take this information and use it to incorporate global experiences within my classroom instruction. It was inspiring to be able to teach my students here about America, and it was easy for me because I have experienced it for my entire life. It is exciting to know that I will be able to have that same thrill teaching my students about the Asian culture; I can feel confident doing so after my extended experience living and teaching in it. On a simpler level, I at least hope to show my students my excitement for another culture or country; hoping that it rubs off on them and motivates them to involve themselves into any other country or culture. A very different way I will be able to incorporate global experiences into my future classroom is experimenting with implementing various teaching strategies that are not common to the US teaching culture. I have learned a few management and instructional strategies that are not as commonly used, it would so neat to be able to explain to my students that they might not be used to this method and tell them where I learned it from and where it is used. An example of this would most commonly come in the form of certain games to instill memory of various information. These are a few of many ways that I will be able to bring from my student teaching abroad to incorporate global experiences into my classroom.

My experiences from teaching internationally go even further than just influencing me as a teacher or person, and even further than allowing me to bring global experiences into my classroom; it has gone to the extent of simply assisting me in overall future encounters I will endure. Communication was a huge component of my time in Taiwan, you were personally responsible for your communication with teachers, students, co-workers, principals, directors, coordinators, and supervisors; even with store vendors, and people we encountered outside of school. Communicating became something that was not as natural, you had to go out of your way to find someone who could help you communicate with some, you occasionally had to express yourself in multiple ways using various gestures. It took patients to communicate at any level here, especially when misunderstandings occur; which occurred often with the language barrier. Being able to have practice trying to communicate with speakers of not my own native language is a beneficial skill to have; I will have an understanding of students that may come into my classroom not being able to speak our native language right away. Another future encounter as an educator I have had the experience dealing with is involvement in school activities. I was able to see how hard work and involvement can pay off and directly affect the students and parents of the school, specifically through our Sports Day. I have seen another overall advantage come about from this experience, and it has been being able to work with multiple grade levels in a wide range, all at once. I was able to then get a good feel for what ages I enjoy working with more but was also able to allow myself to open up to the ages I was not so fond of at the beginning of this experience.

This experience has been a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for me. Upon completion, I gained so much through all of the adventures, personally and professionally. I could not have gained this type of growth with any other student teaching placement. The things I have learned I will take home with me and be able to use in the future. The encounters I made and relationships I built, will forever reflect on this trip. I am thankful for the opportunity I received, and will always cherish it as I take my next steps.

Here is to finding myself and personal happiness while student teaching abroad and getting the experience of a lifetime while doing it! I am truly coming home a whole new person, in the most positive way possible.