by Kevin Giddens ’06

Born and raised in North Carolina, my passion for teaching and intercultural understanding led me to a BA in anthropology and the MA in TESOL at SIT Graduate Institute. Since 2006, I’ve worked as a teacher and teacher trainer in Mexico and South Korea. My professional interests include experiential learning, reflective teacher development, curriculum design, and teaching methodologies. When not at work, I enjoy traveling with my partner, eating and drinking with friends, and training in Capoeira Angola. 

Kevin Giddens

This year I’ve been working as an Interim Year Teaching Practicum (IYTP) supervisor for SIT Graduate Institute. I was a supervisee myself in 2007, and have very much enjoyed the opportunity to experience the IYTP from my supervisor’s perspective. This month I’ve been taking one of SIT’s online courses through its Teacher Training Institute. As part of my course, Supervision: An Educative Process, with Jack Millet, I’ve been reflecting on my experience as a supervisor and wanted to share it.

I met with my supervisee for lunch near the university where he works here in Seoul. We’ve worked together once before, so some rapport had already been established last fall. From the moment we met outside the subway, we began a back and forth discussion about his teaching context. I asked him, “So, what’s been going on in your classes?” He talked about what had changed since we last met. He jumped right into some challenges that he was facing with the class he was supposed to teach that day. This led to a great discussion about student motivation, textbooks, and how the two might be related. I listened actively—so much so that I ran into people several times as we walked to the restaurant. I asked probing questions, such as “Could you say more about that?” to get him to elaborate on the details of his experiences. I also asked questions such as, “So, do you think it was the textbook, the task you designed, or some other factor that led to the success of the lesson?” This one led him to pause, think, and say, “Now that’s a good question.” He then added, “I think it was a little of both.” The discussion turned to the value of setting an appropriate reading task to engage students in the text. 

Our discussion continued intensely as we sat at the restaurant. After about 15 minutes my supervisee asked, “Have we ordered yet? I can’t remember.” I couldn’t remember either. We were both so enraptured in our discussion that we were only half present in the restaurant—but fully present with each other. I tried to focus on listening and allowing him the space to think and talk. From time to time I would ask a question to clarify what he was saying, such as, “So, what I hear you saying is . . . is that right?” I also included some resources by using my phone, that I thought might add substance to our discussion. For example, he was talking about the problems with the textbooks being used in his program—the kids just weren’t relating to them. He said his school was looking for new books, and so I shared a link from a teacher in Korea, David Deubelbeiss, who had his students create a textbook.

This discussion of the current issues in his teaching context also led to several powerful stories of success. At one point he decided to drop the textbook and try a Community Language Learning class with his students (12 year olds). He said they started to make fun of one kid in the class, and he realized it wasn’t going where he had hoped. One of the kids spoke up, “Teacher, can we play this game . . . ?” and continued to describe the game, which involved practicing speaking English. He agreed to follow the student’s idea. The result was that for the first time, the students were really engaged in his class. I was excited because this story tied nicely into my recent post, Do-Nothing Teaching. 

Although I had developed a plan for how I wanted the meeting to go, I decided not to interrupt the flow of conversation with my personal agenda. Finally, we had only a few minutes before he needed to go. Inspired by my own experience as a supervisee on the IYTP, I assigned my supervisee with a task. One of my most memorable moments from my supervision was when my supervisor, Susan Barduhn, asked me to experiment with alternative forms of planning and organizing my lesson. I wanted to try a similar task with my supervisee. I wanted to get him to not only think about what he should be “doing” on the first day of class but also perhaps “what he should not be doing.” What are the activities that he feels are most helpful for his learners, and which ones could be minimized or even eliminated? I asked him to choose something that he always does on the first or second day of class and not do it. He mentioned that often he spends most of the first week doing long “getting to know you activities.” He said that he wanted to minimize those activities this time and spend more time on needs assessment and making classroom language posters. 

Finally, I asked him to send me an email between now and the day I would come to observe his teaching, in which he describes what he’s planning for the lesson, what he would like my role to be in the class, and what he would like me to focus on in my observations. 

Like my supervisee in his story of following his student’s idea for a game, I had a plan for the meeting but instead chose to follow the flow of conversation born out of his interest in exploring the time since we last met. Rich reflection followed, through story sharing, listening, and asking/answering questions. My role was of a colleague, a resource person, an asker of questions, and a sounding board for his experiences. I think that by following my supervisee rather than my own pre-observation plan, our meeting uncovered previously unexplored paths of inquiry that led both of us towards a deeper understanding of his teaching practice.

Alumni of SIT Graduate Institute’s language teaching Master of Arts and Certificate programs today number more than 3,000. Regardless of where in the world these alumni are working, many of them come together each year at the annual TESOL convention, where they are able to renew their connections and gain fresh inspiration for their continued professional development.

Presentations by SIT alumni are featured at each annual convention, and this year’s meeting—which takes place in New Orleans March 17-19—is no exception. Here is a small sample of the dozens of presentations that will be given by SIT alums:

• How Do Teachers Know What to Do?

Jane Hoelker, SMAT 17

• International or Native-Speaker of English? NNESTs’ Dilemmas about “E”LT in Croatia

Irena Vodopija-Krstanovic, SMAT 19

• Teaching English as an International Language: Examining and Negotiating Assumptions

Ryuko Kubota, MAT 18

• Making Connections: Activities for Intercultural Understanding in Conflict Situations

Gusman Edouard, SMAT 24 and Susan Renaud, trainer

Michael Jerald, MAT 4 and Elizabeth Tannenbaum MAT 4

• EFL + ESL = A Literacy Strategy for English Education in Bahrain

Kathleen Graves, MAT 8

• International English Revisited

Jane Hoelker, SMAT 17 and  Dorothy Zemach, MAT 21

• Researching Professional Learning in Two National Contexts

Donald Freeman, MAT 8 and Kathleen Graves, MAT 8

Anne Katz, faculty

As a signal of how vital the discipline is, how compelling the work, and how World Learning is able to make contributions to it from multiple perspectives, please note that not all presenters are holders of SIT Graduate Institute’s MA in TESOL. Other references include participants in these programs:

1. SIT Study Abroad
2. The Experiment in International Living
3. Professional Development and Certificate programs
4. Programs in Intercultural service, Leadership, and Management

Click on the images below to view the entire list of SIT presenters.

SIT Graduate Institute’s Master of Arts in Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL) program is featured in Language Magazine this month (page 31). Susan Barduhn, PhD, Professor and Academic Chair, Summer MA in TESOL For Practicing Teachers of English, wrote about the unique experiential learning focus of the program and highlighted its field-based internship opportunities. 

SIT’s program is designed around the experiential learning cycle. The MA in TESOL academic year program includes an internship in January/February. A supervisor spends a week with the student during their internship, regardless of the teacher’s location throughout the world.

SIT alumna Nayeon Kim poses with her students during her SIT internship in South Africa.

Susan said, “This year’s group is teaching in Brazil, Korea, Taiwan, Turkey, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia, including at these sites:

Thailand – Two Thai K-12 schools outside of Mae Sot, where 70-80 percent of the students are Burmese 

South Africa – A primary school and a high school in the village of Memel, Free State; and at the university in Port Elizabeth.

Morocco – The American Language Center in Kenitra

Costa Rica - Central Espiral Mana, an agricultural village, where English classes are available to all students 13 and older in the community. The country’s 2011 focus is on training public school teachers to bring their English Language skill to a level beyond basic.

New England – U.S. sites are in New England, in public and private schools, prisons, language institutes, community centers, and colleges. The students from the host institutions are immigrants, refugees, international students or visitors.”

(SIT’s Summer MA in TESOL is for practicing teachers. Students complete two summers of coursework in Vermont, and then return to their schools to teach during the academic year and complete the program’s internship component.)