REFLECTION PAPER 1

Bending The Rules: The Living Teaching and Learning

in a Second Language Classroom

Henry Nguyen

Professor: Daiyln Brown

Apr 25, 2022

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What is My Reason For Being?

I like the idea of Ikigai. I like the idea of having a clear, beautiful, and profound wake-up

every morning. Ikigai is not just a way, but a sphere of “satisfaction, happiness, and meaning to

our lives” (García, p.10). Growing up in the world of black and gray, I never achieved and was

lucky enough to obtain privileges to achieve these. Satisfaction to me was just having enough

strength to roughly walk seven kilometers to school every day. Happiness was a bowl of rice with

a single drizzling piece of roasted pork-belly without getting beaten up for it. And yet, the

meaning of my life, an insignificant being, was just having enough air to breathe freely in the

force of being alive. I know how my students feel.

Coming from a background of real lived experiences, I have experienced and witnessed

the unimaginable world that we, the underrepresented, marginalized, and minority people, are

living in. Specifically in the field of teaching English to speakers of other languages (TESOL),

English language learners (ELLs) bear not only the linguistic hardships, but the overwhelming

social, cultural, and financial injustices. Bearing these in mind, the background and the reason for

being in the field to me are about experiencing my students’ experiences and using the diversity

of these to empower the students to empower themselves in the faces of the unconformities.

Having the opportunity to observe in a mentor-classroom environment this semester has given

me the chance to enrich what I stand for, again.

My Placement

In the year of two thousand and twenty-two, despite the unspeakable event of the

pandemic, I was lucky enough to be placed in a local college in San Diego. We met two times a
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week and one hour a day. Students had the choice to either join the class during the meeting

times or not since Zoom was optional. The diversity of the classroom was great because we had

students from all over the world and the ages ranged from in their late 20s to late 50s. The

purpose of the class was to help students build a career path. We worked on materials like writing

a resume, doing one on one interviews, using Microsoft Excel, and so on. Students’ attitude

towards the class and the teacher were truly respectable and joyful. Our students were

determined to thrive in the new environment where they faced many challenges in their normal

lives. I greatly enjoyed the experience and had professionally grown from the class.

Growths

Prior to the placement, I had been teaching and tutoring English as foreign language

(EFL) and a second language (ESL) in different contexts and places. Therefore, for this class, I

walked into the classroom with a belief of well-established the knows, yet the knows turned out

to be one of my greatest lessons contributing to my growth today.

Where I Started

I was naive. Before coming to the classroom, I took quite some time to look at the

syllabus. Syllabus observation has always been my cup of tea in second language education. I

like to carefully read from sentence to sentence, so I can get an idea of what is expected and

going on into the classroom. I did the same for this course. After observing the agenda of the

class, I joined the classroom with the knows more than the unknowns. Therefore, everything

turned out to be not what I expected it was going to be. The greatest lesson turned out to be the

simplest lesson that I had experienced and forgotten; the life of a second language speaker. From
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interacting with this group of students, I learned that interruptions in one’s own syllabus or

lesson plannings were a part of pedagogical practices that I had to respect with the simplest

heart, especially in the age of virtual teaching and learning. If there was a student who

interrupted the class for many unrelated reasons, then I had to hear the unheard voice of the

student before making any assumptions. I learned that it was okay to delay and change the

requirements of the class for our students’ well-being.

Where I Am Now

Being a follower of Confucianism, rules and structures are always something that I

strongly respect and follow. It has also pedagogically influenced my teaching and learning

practices. However, after observing the class, today, I have transformed into a more flexible kind

of teacher; a rubber. I want to be strong for my students, resilient for your learnings, and yet also

flexible for their well-being. Learning how my mentor teacher managed the class helped me to

define the word “Teaching EFL and ESL” again. Today, teaching is not only about meeting one’s

requirement or delivering the scheduled information, but sharpening students’ wellness by

using their own diversity to teach them in the face of social, cultural, and linguistic

unconformities.

Influential Factor

This growth has been greatly contributed by the kind acts of my mentor teacher and the

lives of the students in the classroom.

Mentor Teacher. My mentor teacher surely helped me understand the word “Teaching” more

than ever before. I came into her class with the knows. However, these knows were just the

knows of my own knowledge based on what I have learned, experienced, and practiced. These
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were not the knows of my students. I learned from the mentor teacher that meeting the course’

requirements was important, but celebrating the diversity of the students and using them to teach,

practice, and learn was more crucial in second language education; it helped students feel that

they belonged, were cared for and appreciated. I had an “Aha” moment in this class and my

growth has pedagogically-increasingly happened.

The Students. There is no doubt that the students in this class have nurtured me into a better

teacher. Being exposed to such diverse groups of students helped me see the uniqueness that an

EFL and ESL class could bring. Talking to these students allowed me to raise the awareness of

teaching and learning where students did not learn only from the other experiences, but their own

experiences as well. Being in the same space with the students gave me an opportunity to witness

their glows and growths in the classroom. I learned to know what teaching practices worked well

for each certain group of students. I learned to not totally follow a day’s plan, but a day’ students

instead. I understood another reason for being a teacher in a second language classroom.

My Experience

I have transformed because of this experience. I have transformed into a better teacher

who cares to bring social, cultural, linguistic experiences into the classroom to teach. I have

transformed into a better being with a purposeful reason who celebrates the beings of my

students in their own learnings and my own teaching. Yes, I have transformed. I have

transformed to bend the rules for my students’ well-being. However, these transformations

indeed did not happen just because we had perfect students. These growths and realizations

happened to me because of the untold stories that each student carried. The growth of teaching

came into being because of the real struggles that the students presented in the classroom. The

realizations of learning happened because of the unexpected result of students’ learnings.

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Application

For future teaching, I will indeed apply these learning experiences into my own teaching.

By learning the idea of “living documents” from my Practicum’s teacher along with the

experience that I gained from observing the class, I will bring the idea of “free space” for

students to create and transform their own learning experiences. I will provide space for students

to choose the materials that work well for them and then adjust my syllabus accordingly to fit my

students’ needs. In addition, I will try to create a platform for students to stay connected before,

during and after the class. It is tough for students, especially ESL students, to find a space to

learn, share, and practice. Therefore, I want to move my own classroom or transform it into a

living space where it can be anywhere and for anyone.

References

García, H., Miralles, F., & Cleary, H. (2017). Ikigai: the Japanese secret to a long and happy life.

New York: Penguin Books.