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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Have you ever worked in a school? Student teaching? Substitute? 
The people on DCUM are generally mean and hate FCPS so I wouldn’t give their comments and validity. However, teaching in general is hard and teaching middle school is only for a very special group of people. The people who love middle school absolutely love it and wouldn’t leave. But everyone else either goes higher or lower. It’s a unique age. [/quote]

Yes, I performed a practicum at INTO Mason, working with older ELs. I taught Academic English to international students who mostly matriculate into GMU once they complete their program and pass the TOEFL. I enjoyed that a lot. There are not many positions working full-time with adult ESL students that I have found. I do not have a PhD, so that seems to be precluding me from teaching at the collegiate level. [/quote]

So, I am sorry but that’s not teaching in a K-12 school which is very very different and probably why you aren’t getting hired. As a teacher with a degree in education I took classes that taught classroom management, assessment, child development, how to teach, and so on. I spent 3 semesters with one full day a week in a classroom and then one whole semester student teaching all day, every day. Teaching is hard and if you love it then it’s worth it, but you will just leave it it’s not something you are passionate about and that’s not fair to the students or your colleagues. If it’s not what you actually want to do, please don’t take the job.
If you think you might like to go back and take the appropriate courses then maybe take an IA job or substitute. See what it’s actually like to work in K-12 schools without being completely alone in the classroom. You would probably learn a lot about teaching and about if you’re really interested in it as a career. [/quote]

Do you also have a degree in your subject matter? Just curious. [/quote]

DP. Many teachers do not have Education degrees. For example, my degree is in English and I used a county program to gain my certification. I’ve been teaching for 20 years now. I work with a lot of people who came to teaching in similar ways; some had careers in other fields before transferring to teaching.

We didn’t get the benefit of undergraduate coursework in management, etc., but we have strong content knowledge. People who go through these programs often get mentors to help them through the first year. I suspect it’s a harder route, but I stand here as proof that it can be done.
[/quote]

TY. There is something to be said about being an expert in whatever you intend to teach. Both of my degrees are also in English, with a concentration in linguistics. This means that not only have I studied composition, literature, writing about literature, creative writing, non-fiction writing, theory and inquiry, etc., I have also taken semester-long classes in first language acquisition, affect in language acquisition, grammar and pedagogy, syntax, semantics, pronunciation and pedagogy, etc. For my cornerstone project, I conducted a study on the effects of the lockdown on the sentence complexity of children. My practicum experience is in teaching academic English. There is something to be said about being an expert in something, if that is the something you intend to teach. Also, in what I lack in talent, I make up for with the ability to learn quickly, as well as determination and hard work.

After considering all of the input you all were kind enough to offer me here, I believe I am capable of teaching English at a MS level.[/quote]

Try it - why not? You certainly seem to THINK you can do it with no practical experience. What’s the worst that happens - you crash and burn? There is a reason that a notoriously difficult school is the only one to offer you anything.[/quote]

Perhaps you should take my place, then.[/quote]

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