Letter of Self-Introduction

I graduated from my university in Japan three years ago. I studied linguistics

and English education. I have enjoyed studying English since I was a junior high school
student, so I chose to enter the department of English language and cultures in my
university. I learned how children acquire their native language, the composition of
English with a tree diagram, and the theory of transformational generative grammar by
Chomsky. At the same time, I took a teacher training course. Although it was hard to
take the course besides my major, I studied hard to get a teaching license. I wrote my
graduation thesis about teaching paragraph reading, which is a method to read an article
or essay by each paragraph, relating one paragraph to another. I chose the topic because
I wondered whether there is an effective way of teaching reading with school textbooks
during my practice teaching in high school.
Two people influenced my education: one is a teacher in my high school, and
another is a professor in my university. I learned believing in the potential ability of
students from them. My high school teacher tried to understand me. When I was late for
school several times, she listened to and admonished me, but she never scolded. I
strongly blamed myself for being late, but she made me feel ease. Thanks to her, I was
able to be positive. My professor in my university always encouraged me to study. He
often said I had a potential ability, so I could do well in my study. His words surprised
me and made me have confidence because I almost thought myself as a dropout. He
came to the high school where I was doing my practice teaching to see my class, and he
gave me complements after I finished the class. I still remember these two teachers
when I face a difficult situation in my study.
After my graduation from university, I worked at a junior and senior high

school as an English teacher for two years. While I was working as a teacher, I thought
that I needed more skills to teach. Unfortunately, I was not able to have confidence in
my teaching, and I thought that it was terrible for both students and myself. Also, I
wanted to live in a foreign country for a long time. Therefore, I decided to study abroad.
The reason I chose University of California Riverside, Extension is that I will be able to
have a student teaching at the end of the course. I thought that it would be a great
opportunity to practice what I would learn in the course and to train myself to teach
English all in English. When I taught in the school, I used too much Japanese to teach
English and explain grammar. However, I felt it strange to teach English in Japanese.
Therefore, I wanted to change my teaching style.
In the future, I want to be an English teacher at a junior and senior high school
in Japan. Since I know about Japanese culture and strengths and weaknesses that
Japanese learning English have, I think that I can tell differences between Japanese and
American culture and give them appropriate advice to improve their skills in
communicating in English. Like my teachers who influenced me, I hope that I will be
able to influence my students in some way. I would like to let my students have interests
in English and its culture, and positive mindsets. In addition, I have traveled around the
world, so I want to tell my story and want my students to know there are different
cultures and points of view in the world. I believe that I will be able to gain confidence
in my teaching throughout this course so that I can achieve my goals above in the
future.
In a nutshell, inspired by two teachers, I became an English teacher, and the
two-year-experience as a teacher made me come here and study to accomplish my
future goals.