Life has given me the opportunity to make my best, and I wish to embark upon the journey of betterment with time. I see life as a long road that would provide me with ample opportunities to learn new things, gather new experiences, and become wiser as I grow older with time. I believe what I have done in my past would be of great help in my future goals in life. I have been instilled with the lesson of advancing in life with utmost commitment and effort. In retrospect, the experience that I have gathered from my past jobs would be of great value in the future aims.
I started my career as a nanny. The job demanded providing protection and care to the youngsters. This was a huge responsibility and involved using my skills of communication with the young minds, my strength of character that was needed to guide the youngsters and maintain discipline. As one might comprehend, managing children is probably one of the hardest things to do. They need the constant caressing nature of the person overseeing them. I enjoyed in the pursuit as I could teach a few things to the young minds. Interacting with such children of such tender age entails the skill of mixing up and communication. I believe that my work provided me with the utmost opportunity to hone my skills of conversing with them. With time I became more confident of my role and responsibility, and it would correct to opine that it is easier to manage older people, while taking care of children is a big challenge for sure.
My next job made me take all the more responsibility on my shoulders. I joined service as a lifeguard. Serving as a lifeguard exposed me to emergency situations that needed immediate action on my part. As it can be understood, the onus is much more in the job of a lifeguard. As a lifeguard I needed to be on the lookout all the while. I had to ensure the safety of the people coming to the beach. At times of emergencies, I could not think of my own life, but was aimed to save the life of the distressed people. Thus, this job provided me with a different kind of ambiance and experience that has helped me a lot to lose my inhibitions. I now knew how to deal with practical moments of crisis, and the man management skill required in this job made me learn how to tackle people.
Apart from the different kind of experiences of work in my life, I took time out to get the CPR training that I thought to increasingly important to deal with emergencies. CPR is a technique that is used in case of emergencies like near drowning or heart attack when a person shops breathing or the heartbeat has stopped. The procedure requires training so that the process can be applied with perfection to help the stressed. I always knew that learning this technique would enable me to help others in times of danger or distress. Apart from this, I also got trained in first aid. This made me have the basic knowledge about medicines and treatment people who are hurt or are bleeding. There is no denial of the importance of first aid in any sort of an accident. As such, I aim to use my training in first aid for the betterment of people in problematic situations where they need medical help immediately.
One thing that I might explain in this context is that all the work or training that I have gone through aim at public service. I strongly believe that I should be engaged in doing some work that would be constructive in nature for others and the society. On an apparent level, it might seem that the jobs that I have been engaged in or the training are incongruous with one another. But, it has to be comprehended that all of these skills have had a huge role in developing me holistically who can deal with various kinds of situations. I have become capable of handling emergencies and panic situations.
At such a juncture of life where I had gained considerable experience in my previous work, I took the ETS test and also the FOCUS assessment. Both of these were very enlightening for me as I got to have a clear insight about my areas of strength, and where I needed to work with more commitment so that I could get better with time. The test results went on to reflect my capacity as a person- something that needed to be gauged before I could embark upon the process of reaching my future goals in life. Evaluation is one of the major ways of getting better in the domain of career as well as life in general.
I went on to obtain a score of being proficient in level 1 and 2 of reading and critical thinking. However, I scored to be not proficient in the level 3 of reading and critical thinking. Thus, it can be opined that I am capable enough in the process of reading as well as critical thinking while there still remains a room to become better with time- something that I should aim it from now. I scored proficient in level 1 of writing, marginal in level 2 of writing, and not proficient in level 3. Apart from this, I scored not proficient in all 3 levels of math.
The individual marks that were obtained by me in the ETS test are as follows: critical thinking: 113, Reading: 123, Writing: 114, Math: 105, Humanities: 118, social sciences: 112, Natural sciences: 122. It was opined in the result of the FOCUS assessment that I am flexible. Thus, I took the results to be an eye-opener that made me understand in what subjects I am strong, and also the works on which I need to work so that I become better with time. While it is at times quite an impediment to judge oneself properly, getting the evaluation through a test is quite beneficial for the individual.
I wish to be a teacher in the future so that I can serve the society training the young minds. I believe that my previous experience in man management in different situations and scenarios would be very helpful for the cause of becoming a teacher in the future. As it is understandable, English has come up to be the global language. The era of globalization has transcended the popularity of the language to immense heights. The nations that were not teaching English in the school curriculum have opted to teach the subject to the young students so that they can get well-versed in the language that facilitates communication among people from different cultures and communities. I have always nurtured the dream of being someone who can give something back to the society. I believe that I would do quite well as an English teacher.
In this context, I would like to opine that my ETS scores are quite good in reading. Thus, it proves that I can be a good person for teaching reading English to people. I wish to focus on the non-native English speakers who need special training in the language to be confortable in the new community and culture. According to Seidlhofer (2004), English language teaching requires implementation of specific techniques. My depth in the quality of reading also implies the fact that I am good in pronunciation and accent. Hence, I can be a good accent teacher to the non-native people and be successful in teaching them the language with all its correct pronunciations and accent.
Although people from other cultures across the globe have come forward to show their interest in learning English, the hardest part is talking in the language. Learning the grammar and syntactical rules, a person who is a non-native can learn to write in the language. But, speaking or reading would require proficient teaching so that the person can grasp the matter well enough. Reading is one of the most important parts of learning a language. Thus, I believe that I have a good part to play in the scenario. My FOCUS assessment report says that I am flexible. Hence, it would be easier for me to teach English language to the people who need a lot of patience to be taught. My man management skills would also be of a lot of help in this regard. According to Horowitz (1986), writing tasks also need to be a major part of the curriculum for language practice. I believe I need to make sure that I am a prolific writer myself so that I can teach the students.
The experience of sitting for the ETS test was quite good. This was surely an entirely new experience for me as I had not done any such evaluative thing before in my life. I got a fair idea about my strengths and weaknesses in academics. I believe the test results are not so accurate in my case. Although it has provided me a holistic view of my capacity in academics, in reality I had found the test to be quite boring. Hence, what I did was that I sped through the test. So, I believe I can fare much better than what is being shown in the results of the ETS test. The test was quite long as per my opinion. However, I believe it was a nice experience overall as I got an objective view about my capacity as an individual.
I can take inspiration from the test results and embark upon the path of becoming a teacher going to the grad school. According to Jenkins (2012), native English speakers came become more helpful as teachers for the purpose of teaching English to non-native students. My reading score would work as an encouragement for me. The experience that I have already gathered in my life through my work would help me manage the students or class really well. According to Tembe (2008), second language acquisition needs a lot of practice and skill, and it needs proper guidance from the teacher. I can always give the students the stories of a slice of my life that took me to different places from being a nanny to being a lifeguard. My training in first aid and CPR would work as my added advantage as these training have helped to enhance my knowledge and perspective about life and existence.
As of now, my primary agenda is to get admission in the graduation school so that I can take my academic career further. Since I nurture the dream of becoming a teacher, I ought to do well in studies. My experience as a good student would be of much help for me in my career path. According to the United States Department of Labor published article, ‘High School Teachers’ (2014), high school teachers play a major role in preparing students for their lives after they finish their graduation. After completing my education I would pursue a career in teaching. Considering my age and experience, I believe I can fare very well in the domain of career. My vast experience in dealing with children, grown-ups, and others in distress has provided me with the essence of life and communicating with others. I believe my skill of communication along with ability to manage people would be one of the keys to my success as a teacher.
I would pursue my career as an English teacher who would be aimed to imbibe the students’ mind with knowledge and wisdom. Apart from academic knowledge, what matters is the wisdom about life and existence. According to Harmer (2007), teachers have to play the supportive role in the teaching procedure of English language. As a person who has faced challenging situations in life would surely be able to manage and teach the student community. I am focused on my goal in life, and hope to fulfill my dream of becoming a teacher in due course of time. I strongly believe that I would get better with time, and all the academic work that I have indulged in till now would prove to be very beneficial for me in my pursuit of becoming a teacher.
References
Harmer, J. (2008). How to Teach English. ELT Journal 62 (3). Retrieved from
http://eltj.oxfordjournals.org/content/62/3/313.short
(2014). High School Teachers. In United States Department of Labor. Retrieved from
http://www.bls.gov/ooh/education-training-and-library/high-school-teachers.htm
Horowitz, Daniel M. (1986). What Professors Actually Require: Academic Tasks for the
ESL Classroom. TESOL Quarterly, 20 (3). Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/stable/3586294
Jenkins, Jennifer. (2012). Current Perspectives on Teaching World Englishes and English as a Lingua Franca. TESOL Quarterly 40 (1). Retrieved from 10.2307/40264515
Seidlhofer, Barbara. (2004). Research Perspectives on Teaching English in Lingua
Franca. Annual Review of Applied Linguistics 24. Retrieved from http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/S0267190504000145
Tembe, Juliet.(2008). Developing Literacy in Second-Language Learners: Report of the
National Literacy Panel on Language-Minority Children and Youth. Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 30 (1). Retrieved from http://journals.cambridge.org/action/displayAbstract?fromPage=online&aid=1662776&fileId=S0272263108080182
