Blogging as a Part of My Teaching and Learning

Sharing my native language, English, and my culture, American, has made it possible
for me to encounter peoples of many different languages and cultures throughout the world. I have taught adults in academic and workplace settings in the U.S., Japan and Costa Rica. This has made it possible for me to travel around North America, Asia and the Pacific. Thus, I have also gotten to share in others’ languages and cultures as well as teach my own.

Currently, I have the opportunity to teach Emiratis in applied programs at the Abu Dhabi Men’s College. This teaching experience is proving both challenging and rewarding as I increase my understanding of Arabic peoples and culture. I look forward to another term of working with students I’ve gotten to know, sharing at a deeper level and building on the skills we have developed.

This blog is a tangible representation of both the rewards and challenges of teaching at this level. The blog itself manifests my own skill building as I enhance my technological skills and incorporate them in my teaching methods to further serve the needs of my students. I am creating this blog to serve first, as a model for my students’ blog spots, second, as a channel of communication between us and finally for my own professional development as an educator.

Technological advancement mirrors language development in this instance. For together, I and my students, are experimenting, growing in sophistication, to enhance our ability to communicate: the heart of all language and cultural learning.