My Profile

Hello! My name is Teresa. Thank you for viewing my profile!

I enrolled in a TESOL certificate program (anticipated completion date April 2017) because I am excited to learn about new cultures and because I enjoy teaching, learning, and sharing language and literature.

I grew up and completed my schooling in the United States, earning my Bachelor's degree from Saint Mary's University of Minnesota in Literature with a Writing Emphasis and my Master's degree in British and American Literature from Marquette University.

During my Master's program, I concurrently taught undergraduate Rhetoric and Composition classes. I designed lesson plans that appealed to various learning styles, honing students' skills in writing for a particular audience in a certain genre, entering into a dialogue as we interpreted fiction and nonfiction works, and reviewing peers' papers and revising their own as part of the writing process.

I currently work as a tutor in a credit recovery program at a high school in Denver, Colorado. During the school day, I help students with content understanding of their computer-based classes, primarily for English and math courses. I also encourage intrinsic motivation within the students, so they have the confidence and discipline to complete their work so they stay on track for graduation.

After school, I work as the Program Lead at an elementary school for their Extended Care program. One of my favorite parts of my job is helping the students with their homework. Some of the younger kids are learning to recognize sound repetition in familiar words while the older students are memorizing Latin words that form the root of words they use in English.

A couple nights a week, I also tutor a bilingual student in English. We focus on reading comprehension and polishing his understanding of grammatical terms.

I am also in the process of learning Spanish. In addition to my online classes, I attend an adult language learning group for English and Spanish speakers once a week. The group is open to all fluency levels and is designed to provide a comfortable environment to practice speaking in the target language with native speakers.

This language group is in many ways a microcosm for what appeals to me about teaching English abroad. In both contexts, one is at once student and teacher, always learning. One is engaging with a new culture, while sharing her own, connecting over the similarities, exploring with curiosity the divergences. And all the while growing in perspective and experience.