Reflections on the Academic Year

This year, I have taken advantage of different opportunities to improve, expand and reflect on my practice as an educator. I've been increasingly interested in research and conducting research and contributing my expertise to others in the field for the benefit of shared practices. I entered the M.Ed. program with a specific research question in mind from my experiences in a LINC Level 1-3 class. I felt that this issue demanded examination which might lead to benefits for LINC clients and instructors. Currently, I'm awaiting final ethics approval from TESL Ontario before I begin collecting data. Once, I have collected and analyzed the data, I plan to share my findings with others in the field through conferences and professional journals.

In the interim, I have presented at two conferences and had a proposal accepted at a third conference. The first conference was the Spring TESL Hamilton-Wentworth conference. I presented a workshop on pronunciation that I had previously presented for the Hamilton Literacy Council. This experience was encouraging for me on several levels. First, I gained experience in facilitating conference workshops which I I hope to do more of in the future. Second, I was also networking with fellow instructors and gaining their insight and experiences. The second conference was a little more exciting as it took place during the G20 Summit in Toronto. We presented at 8:30 on the first day of the G20. This presentation was a collaboration between the instructor and some of the classmates and myself from a class in the Fall semester of 2009. We completed an auto-ethnography of our experiences in this class which was based upon the concept of participatory pedagogy. Although the turnout was lower than anticipated due to the summit and fear of protests later that day, the experience was very rewarding. The participants that we did have were very engaged and gave us even more insight and food for thought into our experiences of participatory pedagogy. Having completed two presentations, I feel much better prepared to present the findings of my own research, once complete, and have a new found confidence for presenting in front of groups such as these.