Date of Award

5-2016

Degree Type

Creative Project

Degree Name

Master of Second Language Teaching (MSLT)

Department

World Languages and Cultures

Committee Chair(s)

Sarah Gordon

Committee

Sarah Gordon

Committee

Karin de Jonge-Kannan

Committee

Maria Luisa Spicer-Escalante

Abstract

Within this portfolio, the reader will find the work that the author has completed over the last two years in the Master of Second Language Teaching (MSLT) program at Utah State University and a demonstration of her professional growth as an instructor over this period of time. The first major part is the teaching philosophy, in which the author discusses: the experiences as a student that have shaped her as a teacher, the various teaching contexts in which she may work in the future, her personal philosophy of language teaching shaped by what she has learned in the MSLT program, and the lessons learned from observing her own and others' classrooms.

The second part is comprised of three artifacts written throughout the program which explore topics inspired by the everyday practicalities of language teaching. The first artifact explores student first language use in the immersion classroom and applying an understanding of this phenomenon to the foreign language classroom. The second artifact discusses vocabulary acquisition through writing tasks and concludes with a research study proposal to better understand how different language scripts may affect vocabulary acquisition. The third artifact delves into the topic of teaching second-person pronouns (tu and vous) in the French as a foreign language classroom; the author here offers a lesson plan for teaching this nuanced aspect of francophone interaction. The portfolio concludes with three annotated bibliographies which further support the teaching philosophy in addressing three other practical aspects of language teaching: the communicative language teaching approach, motivation and anxiety in the foreign language classroom, and culture teaching with technology.

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