Student B

Ms. Tseng
Essay Rough Draft
04/14/2017

My Senior Project Experience

My passion for teaching is why I have decided to create a lesson plan and PowerPoint
presentation for an “English as a Second Language” (ESL) class for my Senior Project. While I’m still
not positive if I want to be a history teacher here in America or an ESL teacher abroad, I felt that this
would be very good practice for my career goals no matter what I end up deciding to do.
There was a lot to do for my senior project. I didn’t want to create just a lesson plan – I wanted
to act like a real teacher and prepare every little thing for an actual class. That included the lesson plan
for me to follow, a PowerPoint to go along with the actual lesson, as well as a worksheet for students to
fill out, and a game to play. Before doing so, I had to do a lot of research into everything. I had to learn
how to create a good, well-timed lesson plan, I had to study other ESL teacher’s PowerPoints and
lesson ideas to model my own ideas after, as well as pre-made worksheets and homework papers. Plus I
did a lot of personal research on the matter, too, by watching videos, documentaries, and reading about
experiences online from ESL teachers. This was important to me because it gave me a feeling of what
being an ESL teacher is really like and helped me figure out if this is what I wanted to do. By doing so
much research, I learned about the good experiences that people had while being a teacher, as well as
the struggles.
In one single day, the average teacher will often have up to five classes of students. This
happens again the next day and the next and the next, for five days. That means that the teacher has to
come up with approximately twenty five lesson plans for the week. These lesson plans have to be
situated in a way that can fit into 45 minute class periods, without going too slowly so that the students
aren’t able to complete everything before the bell rings and without going too quickly that you’re left
with nothing to do by the end. While it’s not the end of the world if lesson plans run a bit too long or
too short (after all, you can continue what you were teaching the next day if there was too much or you
can use the extra time at the end of a class to keep practicing or play a fun game with the class), it’s still
best to keep everything well planned. Not to mention that you need to make sure that the lessons keep
the classes attention for forty-five minutes and don’t grow too boring that students don’t listen. This
means that a teacher needs to keep everything going at a good pace and have games and activities
prepared ahead of time, as well as worksheets and homework. That’s a lot to plan for five or six classes
a day!
These difficulties can seem tiring, but a job isn’t fun if there isn’t a challenge! Teaching English,
much like learning a language yourself, is very rewarding. Watching as your students slowly improve
with each day and seeing how you are able to communicate with them easier and easier with the
passing time is truly wonderful. By teaching students English, you’re opening many doors to them, as it
is the world’s “lingua franca,” a language that makes communication possible between people with
different native languages. While it doesn’t always seem fair, a German, Italian, Japanese, or French
native speaker – for example – will typically not be able to get far communicating in their native
tongue to people abroad. However, with just a very basic understanding of English, a person from any
one of these countries will have many more opportunities available to them if they wish to travel or
pursue goals in other parts of the world. English can be an incredibly important language to learn and
being a teacher that helps children to learn such a helpful skill is rewarding, as you feel the importance
of what you’re doing and can see before your eyes as young students become better at the language and
the world opens up to them.
While I’m not sure exactly what grade(s) I’ll be teaching in the future, nor at what level of
English my students will be at, I decided to create my lesson based on more of an elementary school
level, since I would love to work with younger kids. I went back and forth between what kind of topics
I wanted to teach for this lesson, but I finally settled on teaching about animals and the English sounds
they make. Every language has not only its own words, but also its own sounds. For instance, when we
ask an English-speaking child, “what sound does a cat make?” they’ll typically respond with, “meow!”
But cats don’t sound the same in Korean! A Korean-speaking child, when faced with the same question,
will reply, “yaong!” Knowing this, I decided to base the lesson around sounds rather than a basic
vocabulary-list kind of setup, that way students could learn onomatopoeia while also memorizing the
names of animals in English. This can make a lesson far more entertaining for children. I’m very
pleased with how everything turned out as far as the lesson goes. It was important for me to focus on
keeping my lesson fun since, when dealing with the short attention spans of elementary school
students, captivation is key.
The last bits I did for my project were to create a worksheet that students could fill out in time
with the presentation, as well as plan a game that the kids could play to practice their new vocabulary
as well as their speaking and listening skills. I describe the game better in my presentation. For the
worksheet, I settled on a pretty simple concept. On the presentation, I would play a sound of an animal
(such as “moo!” or “squeak!”) and then the students would fill out the name of the animal that
corresponds with that sound on their worksheet. I also included clip-art of the respective animals to
give hints and help the kids associate that name and sound with the animal. It’s very important when
learning a language to associate a word with an actual object, rather than just the translation into your
native tongue. This helps us stop from translating in our head so much, meaning we can speak and
listen to native speakers much easier. It’s not easy to keep up with others if you’re constantly
translating every word they say into your native tongue to figure out what they’re talking about!
Overall, though the work for this project was challenging and took a lot of time, I truly feel like this
was great practice for when I am older and become an ESL teacher.
 Reflective Essay Rubric
60% or under 70% 80% 90% 100%

-Not double- -Not double- -Not double- -Double-spaced -Double-spaced and

spaced or in MLA spaced or in spaced or in and in MLA in MLA format.
format. MLA format. MLA format. format.
-Clear, logical and
-Essay is unclear -Essay is -Clear, logical -Clear, logical and sequential essay.
and not unclear and and sequential sequential essay.
sequential. not sequential. essay. -Fully describes the
-Fully describes nature of the project
-The description -Briefly -Fully describes the nature of the in detail and depth.
of the project is describes the the nature of the project in detail
unclear and lacks nature of the project, but and depth. -Comprehensively
detail. project and clarifying details explains how the
additional could have been -Explains how the project is relevant to
-Does not fully details could provided. project is relevant and relates to future
describe the have been to and relates to career goals.
nature of the provided. -Explains how future career
project or provide the project is goals. -Identifies skills and
clarifying details. -Describes relevant to and knowledge
some of the relates to future -Identifies skills developed during
-Does not fully process of career goals, but and knowledge the project.
describe how the planning, could have developed during
project is relevant executing and provided more the project. -Describes and
to and relates to completing the reflection. justifies the process
future career project. -Describes but of planning,
goals. -Identifies some does not justify executing and
-Briefly skills and how the process completing the
-Does not reflect describes how knowledge of planning, project.
on insights gained the project is developed executing and
from the project, relevant to and during the completing the -Goes above and
questions or relates to project. project led to beyond reflecting on
further topics for future career skills insights gained from
research. goals, but -Does not reflect development. the project, as well
could have on insights as any questions or
-Less than 3 provided more gained from the -Does reflect on further topics for
pages in length. reflection. project, as well insights gained research.
as any questions from the project,
-Does not or further topics as well as any -5-7 pages in length.
reflect on for research. questions or
insights gained further topics for
from the -5-7 pages in research.
project, as well length.
as any -5-7 pages in
questions or length.
further topics
for research.

-Less than 5
pages in
length.
Student B, you have a solid rough draft here in describing the process of executing your project.
However, do not forget that the end purpose of your senior project is for you to develop skills,
knowledge and mindsets that are pertinent to your career goals. What are the specific skills and
knowledge that you developed as you learned how to lesson plan? How will these skills and knowledge
help you in your future career? Why did you choose this project rather than another education related
project? You will need to clearly answer these questions in your essay to in detail to fully flesh out your
essay. Additionally, I recommend reading over the checklist, then using it as you revise your writing.
This will help you take care of details such as using MLA format. Looking over the elements of papers
that receive 80-100% will help guide you towards an A or a B grade. Let me know if you would like to
have a phone conference—I’m happy to talk over my feedback in more detail. 75/100.