Personal Statements

Diversity, Equity, and Identity

Personally, I thrive in a diverse environment; I celebrate it. I have lived in the California Bay Area for most of my life, and I love the state’s eclectic mix of people who call it home. Although I have never felt the sting of discrimination for having an accent, for the color of my skin, or of being misgendered, I have felt the prejudice of being a woman. When I am working with English learners, I must remember that they, too, are marginalized for their viewed “lack” of English language skills. As my awareness of these issues affects my personal life, it also is reflected in my professional life. I cannot help but ask myself - How can I be an ally to those who experience this kind of bias?  

During my two years of work as a teacher at Sylvan Learning of Napa Valley, I have had the privilege of working with a divergent student population. Not only do I work with a wide range of ages, but I also tutor students with learning difficulties. It is with these students that I have learned to be open minded and flexible. I do use the Sylvan curriculum, but I realize that sometimes curriculum is not equally fair for all students. I have learned to add materials and a multisensory teaching approach with students in order for them to receive the same access to a learning experience as their peers.

Since my students represent varied socioeconomic, religious, family, and language backgrounds that represent the Napa Valley, I am learning to be more empathetic. Some of my students are from the Migrant Education and the McKinley programs at the local schools, the migrant families and homeless school programs, respectively. Currently, I am tutoring some of these high school students in English at Vintage High School in the hope that I can assist them in completing their virtual school year and help them improve their English language skills.   

When I choose professional development opportunities, I look for topics that include diversity, equity, and inclusion for all people. I am currently working on my Social Justice Certificate from Literacy Minnesota with webinars titled: Accent Bias and Discrimination in the U.S. and Islamophobia. As president of San Francisco State’s MA TESOL Student Association, I have assisted in offering an academic event which discusses how to develop equity within TESOL. I attend CATESOL webinars: Adapting equity-oriented readings for the online ESL classroom and Teaching Pronunciation: It Doesn't Take a Native Speaker. My final Capstone project topic is how to improve access to language learning for English learners with dyslexia which demonstrates my intention of gaining as much knowledge I can about assisting English language learners with different, and often marginalized, needs.

As a future teacher and leader in the ESL community, I wish to cultivate learning that includes everyone by adding equity-minded books to my future syllabus’, by preparing lesson plans that include all learning styles, and by creating safe, equitable classrooms where all voices can be heard.

Written Corrective Feedback

The main reason I will give you written feedback on your papers is because I want you to be able to move on to the next draft of your paper or essay in a positive and more excellent way, always improving on what your last writing piece displayed. I will make every effort to give you feedback in a timely manner. I will always try to provide feedback that you can actually read and understand. If you have questions, you are free to ask me about why I have written something on your draft. When I am writing a comment on your paper or essay, I am doing so because I want to help you get to the next step of your writing. Sometimes that is just finishing up an introduction, but sometimes it is finishing up a whole paper. If you need to talk to me, I am here. Please see me during office hours or make an appointment. I will only mark the incorrect grammar points that I think are really important to your audience understanding your writing. If you want more grammar help than that, you can ask me for assistance.