How I got here

I am a language person.  I think most people arrive at Composition Studies through literature, but I got here through language.  When I was 18, I went to visit my sister, who was a Peace Corps volunteer in the Congo, Central Africa.  Before going, my sister told me that I should study a little French.  I took one semester of French and hated every second of the class.  The grammar was so complicated, the pronunciation was impossible, and worst of all, Madame Alexandria was one of the meanest teachers I'd ever had.  She would confront us in class when we made a mistake, she would laugh at us when we mispronounced an exotic vowel, and she would only award A's to those students who she thought were good enough to major in the language.  I did the minimum amount of work necessary to get through the semester, looking forward to an adventure in Africa.

Going to the Congo cracked me open like an egg.  It was my first time leaving the U.S., and I went from a Southern California beach town to the (almost literal) center of Africa.  I experienced a life like one I had never imagined. It was rough at times, and the lifestyle was beyond basic.  We had electricity a couple of hours a week, water from a big oil can in the kitchen, and mostly beans and rice to eat.  The thing that changed me the most, though, was the language. French was beautiful, complex, and fascinating.  There were new ways of speaking, new ways of thinking, and even new ways of experiencing the world.  Every time I learned a new expression it was like I was discovering a new part of myself. When I came back I was a different person, and I wanted to learn everything I could about French and language in general.

Studying French became fun.  Instead of going to the language lab to listen to recorded French, I went to the tutor and spoke French with a real person.  I finished all the French classes and moved on to Spanish.  Madame Alexandria never saw fit to give me an A in French, but I showed her by transferring to UC Santa Barbara and majoring in Linguistics and French.

After college I did some traveling and English teaching, and then moved to San Francisco and taught ESL at an intensive English program.  I moved around a little and decided to go to UC San Diego to study theoretical linguistics.  A few years in that program beat out all of my enthusiasm for "theoretical linguistics," but did not kill my love of language.  I started teaching ESL at the community college level.  I loved teaching at this higher level because the students were more invested and I could challenge them more.  I could see the students progress more in a shorter time, and the best part was that I was actually helping the people in my community improve their lives and their opportunities.  I started to teach higher levels of ESL reading and writing, and found that I really liked that too, but it seemed to be a totally different set of skills. I could do OK, but I always felt I was missing something.  I got better with experience, but it was unsatisfying.   After the California economy crashed, I decided to enter this certificate program to improve my teaching skills and my chances of getting work at the community college level.  It has been great so far, and has totally changed my way of teaching.