Fulbright scholar Ari Sukmana, an English teacher of rural Indonesians for 8 years, enlivened SIT classrooms with his sharp wit, inquisitive mind, and embracive spirit. From the perspective of his MAT colleagues, he has fulfilled Senator J. William Fulbright’s intention to “foster leadership, learning, and empathy between cultures.” In describing his learning this year, he demonstrates the essence of this MA in Teaching.
The Soul of SIT: PTOTP, Experiential Learning, and Social Justice
Before coming to study in SIT’s MA in Teaching, my teaching — in public and private schools — shaped my beliefs about language teaching and built my awareness of and sensitivity to social justice. I dreamt that I could pursue higher education and articulate my personal teaching theories and beliefs as well as apply my language teaching philosophy for the sake of social justice.
In 2006, I won the Fulbright scholarship and was admitted to three outstanding universities in the US. Initially, I chose SIT only because of its great reputation in the field of TESOL and its prominent professors. During my studies here, however, I discovered that SIT’s teaching philosophy is based on learning through experience for social justice and was greater than I had thought.
Cut Intan Meutia taught beginning students of English in Rhode Island for her internship. Here she reflects on an important teaching attitude, willingness to change. Selected by the Ford Foundation as a promising leader of exceptional merit, she will shortly return home and begin furthering greater economic and social justice in Indonesia. By teaching English among communities that lack systemic access to higher education, she hopes to change her students’ visibility in the world as well as their own worldviews.
I believe that teaching means empowering students. Before coming to the United States of America, I had traveled to areas that were devastated by the 2004 tsunami. Most of the schools I visited had been severely affected by both the earthquake and the tsunami.
Heesoo Park taught English for 10 years to Korean undergraduate and graduate students. Embracing the safety of her SIT classrooms, she transferred it to a teaching practice in Thailand for her internship. As exceptionally good teachers do, she discovered parts of herself in the process of teaching, parts that exist in all of us and ones that need expression. She sees the world differently now.
It was a huge shock to teach on the Thai-Burma border, because I had never been involved in teaching situations that were politically and economically vulnerable.
For his internship, Lucas Kovacevich taught in Pachuca, Mexico, for two months. He taught three classes at a private school that chose him to teach English to students of every level and age. These journal entries from his Conversation Class demonstrate his reflective practice, his growing confidence, and his students’ success.
Sarah Robinson, a 2007-08 student, is preparing to teach English with international professionals. As she nears the end of her course work, she is realizing the value of her own education and reflects on its emerging outcomes.
When I decided to come to SIT, I did so based on the desire to be a part of an educational community that would provide me with more than just a degree. I saw something unique about this mysterious place called SIT.
Random statistics about SIT Graduate Institute’s MA in Teaching and its alumni can prove enlightening. Note that each number below represents people’s lives. Enhancing the lives of others is a teacher’s work. To enable the understanding of others as well as to enable self-expression across culture is the work of the language teacher. To situate that learning in a global context is what alumni of this MA in Teaching can do.
Janis Birdsall reflects on teaching, learning, and the role of SIT faculty in helping teachers’ voices be heard, even in her own school district. A student in 1991, she also taught MAT students for many years and continues to supervise them.
Susan Barduhn, a past president of the International Association of Teachers of English as a Foreign Language, calls us to recognize how connected we all are to one another.
I am on the faculty of the MA in Teaching at SIT, but long ago I was a student here, and it changed my life and set me on my life’s path.
Minhee Kang, an alumna from 1998, briefly describes how this concept is integral to the student experience. Faculty carefully and consciously design learning experiences — in and out of the classroom — that build a community of people who learn to rely on each other as employment resources, as a professional network, and as dear friends.
Ahad Shahbaz, president of INTERLINK Language Centers, notes why he prefers to hire SIT-trained English teachers. A leader in language education, he was president of Carolina TESOL, is president of the American Consortium of Universities, and has been a multi-year presenter for NAFSA: Association of International Educators on topics related to training, leadership, and management.
INTERLINK believes SIT provides what no other MA in Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages does.
