Goals Statement

Professional and Educational Goals Statement January 2006 In January 2006, I had begun my last semester of coursework toward completing my M. Ed. The following goals statement was submitted with my application for admission to the doctoral program at GMU.
Over the past 10 years, George Mason University (GMU) has provided me with the perfect setting to not only achieve academic success but to continue to connect existing goals to new interests. I earned my B. A. in Spanish from GMU in 1999 and by this summer (2006), I will have met all the requirements in the CIFL / Master’s in Education (M. Ed) program. During my undergraduate studies, I took a number of courses in education. Inspired by what I had learned, I began teaching Spanish with Fairfax County Adult Education (FCPS-ACE). While teaching with FCPS-ACE I received two Outstanding Instructor awards for my ability to increase enrollment in western Fairfax County and for my contributions in developing and sharing materials for instruction. However, my desire to study second language acquisition research began during a workshop at the 2004 conference of the American Council for Teachers of Foreign Languages. Conducted by Drs. Bill VanPatten and James Lee, the workshop left such an impression that in April of 2004, I applied to the CIFL / M. Ed. program at GMU. My experiences in the CIFL / M.Ed program have provided me with the tools to be an effective Spanish teacher in both the elementary school classroom and in the high school setting. In addition to the knowledge and skills I have gained, I have learned that to be a professional educator requires a willingness to reflect on my daily lessons, to nurture relationships with my colleagues and with the parents of my students, and to continue my professional development. Although the coursework I completed in the CIFL / M.Ed program at GMU has been critical to my development as a Spanish teacher, it also has served as a catalyst to new goals and interests. My passion for teaching Spanish is now coupled with my desire to pursue a doctorate in curriculum and instruction. I have begun my own preliminary research that has focused on the development and implementation of teaching strategies that are based on the cognitive, linguistic and socio-cultural processes that take place within each language learner. This early research also included conducting a teacher action research project. In this project, I summarized how Howard Gardner’s Multiple Intelligence Theory (MI Theory) can be introduced to language learners by using surveys. It also explored whether or not there is a correlation between a learner’s strong intelligences and his or her preferred classroom activities. These research interests are similar to those of Dr. Marjorie Haley who has agreed to mentor and supervise my work. As a student of Dr. Haley’s, I have successfully completed the CIFL portion of the M. Ed program. Under her direction, I presented my teacher action research project on MI Theory as a poster session at the 2005 Northeast Conference on the Teaching of Foreign Languages where I also received the Vista Higher Learning Award. While I am proud of the work that I have done thus far in my pursuit for a M. Ed, I believe my best work is yet to come. My goal, should I be accepted into the doctorate program, is to improve my abilities to conduct meaningful research that will facilitate my ability to bring said research to practice. I understand that pursuing this goal will require the self-motivation, the personal dedication and the perseverance to achieve success in an academic environment. It will also require a commitment to being a life long learner and a level of professionalism that not only reflects upon me as an individual, but the institution of higher education that I represent. My willingness to collaborate with colleagues and to reflect on my own research is equally important. Developing and sharing ideas is the fuel to changing outdated paradigms in pedagogy. I look forward to working with other doctoral students, as I believe I can learn from them as I make my own contributions to collaborative projects. Upon completion, I would like to use my doctorate degree to teach both experienced professional language teachers and teacher candidates at the university level. My interests involve developing, implementing, and assessing new teaching strategies for beginning language teachers as well as teachers of heritage language learners. Because the field of curriculum and instruction covers a broad spectrum of research and applications, I will have to design an individualized doctoral program that will meet my specific needs. The flexibility that GMU offers in developing such a course of study is unique. Should I be given the opportunity to continue here, I will pursue a doctorate degree with as much energy and commitment as I have shown in my past academic and professional endeavors.

Professional and Educational Goals Statement
January 2006

In January 2006, I had begun my last semester of coursework toward completing my M. Ed. The following goals statement was submitted with my application for admission to the doctoral program at GMU.

Over the past 10 years, George Mason University (GMU) has provided me with the perfect setting to not only achieve academic success but to continue to connect existing goals to new interests. I earned my B. A. in Spanish from GMU in 1999 and by this summer (2006), I will have met all the requirements in the CIFL / Master’s in Education (M. Ed) program. During my undergraduate studies, I took a number of courses in education. Inspired by what I had learned, I began teaching Spanish with Fairfax County Adult Education (FCPS-ACE).

While teaching with FCPS-ACE I received two Outstanding Instructor awards for my ability to increase enrollment in western Fairfax County and for my contributions in developing and sharing materials for instruction. However, my desire to study second language acquisition research began during a workshop at the 2004 conference of the American Council for Teachers of Foreign Languages. Conducted by Drs. Bill VanPatten and James Lee, the workshop left such an impression that in April of 2004, I applied to the CIFL / M. Ed. program at GMU.

My experiences in the CIFL / M.Ed program have provided me with the tools to be an effective Spanish teacher in both the elementary school classroom and in the high school setting. In addition to the knowledge and skills I have gained, I have learned that to be a professional educator requires a willingness to reflect on my daily lessons, to nurture relationships with my colleagues and with the parents of my students, and to continue my professional development. Although the coursework I completed in the CIFL / M.Ed program at GMU has been critical to my development as a Spanish teacher, it also has served as a catalyst to new goals and interests.

My passion for teaching Spanish is now coupled with my desire to pursue a doctorate in curriculum and instruction. I have begun my own preliminary research that has focused on the development and implementation of teaching strategies that are based on the cognitive, linguistic and socio-cultural processes that take place within each language learner. This early research also included conducting a teacher action research project. In this project, I summarized how Howard Gardner’s Multiple Intelligence Theory (MI Theory) can be introduced to language learners by using surveys. It also explored whether or not there is a correlation between a learner’s strong intelligences and his or her preferred classroom activities.

These research interests are similar to those of Dr. Marjorie Haley who has agreed to mentor and supervise my work. As a student of Dr. Haley’s, I have successfully completed the CIFL portion of the M. Ed program. Under her direction, I presented my teacher action research project on MI Theory as a poster session at the 2005 Northeast Conference on the Teaching of Foreign Languages where I also received the Vista Higher Learning Award. While I am proud of the work that I have done thus far in my pursuit for a M. Ed, I believe my best work is yet to come.

My goal, should I be accepted into the doctorate program, is to improve my abilities to conduct meaningful research that will facilitate my ability to bring said research to practice. I understand that pursuing this goal will require the self-motivation, the personal dedication and the perseverance to achieve success in an academic environment. It will also require a commitment to being a life long learner and a level of professionalism that not only reflects upon me as an individual, but the institution of higher education that I represent. My willingness to collaborate with colleagues and to reflect on my own research is equally important. Developing and sharing ideas is the fuel to changing outdated paradigms in pedagogy. I look forward to working with other doctoral students, as I believe I can learn from them as I make my own contributions to collaborative projects.

Upon completion, I would like to use my doctorate degree to teach both experienced professional language teachers and teacher candidates at the university level. My interests involve developing, implementing, and assessing new teaching strategies for beginning language teachers as well as teachers of heritage language learners. Because the field of curriculum and instruction covers a broad spectrum of research and applications, I will have to design an individualized doctoral program that will meet my specific needs. The flexibility that GMU offers in developing such a course of study is unique. Should I be given the opportunity to continue here, I will pursue a doctorate degree with as much energy and commitment as I have shown in my past academic and professional endeavors.

Professional and Educational Goals Statement May 2009 In April of 2009, I finished my coursework in the PhD in Education Program. As I prepared my portfolio for a comprehensive review, I reflected upon my original goals statement. The following is an update of my professional and educational goals.
The Journey It is hard to believe that almost three years have passed since I began my doctoral journey. It began with the Ways of Knowing course in the fall of 2006. I remember my frustration during the first few weeks because nothing was making any sense. After finishing my M.Ed that summer, I believed that my PhD coursework would essentially be a continuation of what I had been doing in the master's program. I could not have been more wrong. After two weeks, I realized how little I actually knew. As I ate my first piece of humble pie, I spent hours on the Internet using Google to find information on the cognitive revolution, so that the words of Jerome Bruner in Acts of Meaning would become meaningful to me. This was rather ironic. The connection between meaning making and culture that Bruner proposes in his notion of folk-psychology resonated with me. But, it was the work of Pierre Bourdieu that changed my thinking about the field of foreign/world (FL/WL) education. I have used the following quote in several of my papers as I believe it eloquently expresses the symbolic power of language: As soon as one treats language as an autonomous object, accepting the radical separation which Saussure made between internal and external linguistics, between the science of language and the science of the social uses of language, one is condemned to looking within words for the power of words, that is, looking for it where it is not to be found. By the end of Ways of Knowing, I was asking questions such as, whose languages and cultures are considered "the legitimate" in our post-colonial Western education system? Who is allowed to study these languages? And, what paradigms for conducting second language acquisition research are valued? I spent the next three years investigating this question from a variety of lenses, including critical pedagogy, sociocultural theory, and educational anthropology. As I look back at my original goals statement, I said that I wanted to pursue a PhD in curriculum and instruction. That specialty was no longer offered as I put together my program of study. This did not matter. After that first semester, I knew my major would be multilingual/multicultural education. And, because we live in a digital world, I made instructional technology my minor. I have no regrets over these choices. This is because my professional goal to work as a language educator, preparing language teachers to meet the needs of today's diverse language learners, has not changed. However, now this goal is coupled with my desire to conduct research that will challenge existing paradigms for teaching and learning foreign/world languages. Preparing Language Teachers to Teach Languages and Cultures for Global Citizenship Daughter: Daddy, when they teach French at school, why don’t they teach us to wave our hands [like Frenchmen do when they talk}? Father: I don’t know, I am sure I don’t know. That is probably one of the reasons why people find learning languages so difficult. –Gregory Bateson Why do language teachers continue to struggle to teach the nuances of languages and cultures in their lessons? This question has become more relevant as technology has facilitated the globalization of economies and societies that had previously been disconnected. Simply put, today's language teachers need to do a better job of educating for global citizenship and language educators need to do a better job of preparing FL/WL teachers to do so. I believe that much of this problem is related to our current focus on the development of communicative competence at the expense of preparing today's language learners to be cultural mediators. This problem becomes more complex by issues of power and authority in the FL/WL classroom. We cannot assume that these issues will just disappear on their own. It is likely that many of our language teachers have not yet fully developed the knowledge, skills and dispositions that we are expecting them to model in their cultural lessons. Michael Byram (2008) warns that "it is possible that biculturals [referring to language teachers] are ethnocentric in two cultures, just as monolinguals are can be ethnocentric in one" (p. 72). Over the last several semesters of my coursework, I have refined my views of this topic. Halfway through the program, the question for me was from what perspective would I conduct my dissertation research. When I began the doctoral program, I had been teaching Spanish with the Department of Modern and Classical Languages. I initially thought that I would focus my dissertation research on post-secondary language education, with perhaps an intervention that included technology. I had several conversations with the Director of the Beginning Spanish Program at GMU about the use of web logs to enhance the development of reading and writing skills with beginning language learners. We had discussed writing prompts for the blogs that asked students to think critically about cultural differences among Spanish speaking countries. The use of blogs could be a way to teach culture that extended beyond the trivia presented in the required textbook. Along my journey, my interest shifted from teaching a foreign/world language to preparing FL/WL teachers for licensure. Since making this change, I have been fortunate to work as a teacher educator with the foreign/world language licensure program at GMU. These teaching experiences did not occur in isolation from my research interests. With each course that I taught, I reflected on the effectiveness of my instructional practices. These reflections were then followed by changes--including new readings and activities-- for the licensure candidates to think critically about their pedagogical beliefs and the diverse needs of today's language learners. Though I have found teaching in the licensure program to be a challenge, it has been very rewarding. I know that I have grown and will continue to grow as a teacher educator. These experiences have also contributed to my knowledge as a researcher. I look forward to using my experiential knowledge in my dissertation research and beyond. Becoming a Leader in FL/WL Teacher Education and SLA Research So, what shall I do beyond the dissertation? Answering this question is perhaps counting my research chickens before the eggs of my dissertation have hatched. But I shall finish my dissertation, if all goes as planned, in the first half of 2010. For me, completing my dissertation is a stepping stone to what I would like to do with the rest of my professional life. Becoming a leader in FL/WL education and SLA research may seem like a lofty goal, but I have had exceptional mentors throughout my program with whom I hope to continue to collaborate. With their guidance, I have presented at workshops as well as local, regional, and national conferences. I have also had experiences writing for publication and reviewing articles for two different publications. There is no doubt that this is the kind of work that I would like to continue to do, always with the goal to push the envelope of my own thinking as well as the existing paradigms in my field. As Margaret Wheatley (2005) says, "people like all forms of life, only change when something so disturbs them that they are forced to let go of their present beliefs... change occurs only when we let go of our certainty, our current views,and develop a new understanding of what is going on" (p. 104). Both in my doctoral dissertation and in my future scholarship, I shall strive to be an agent of change. References: Bateson, G. (2000). Why do Frenchmen? In Bradley A.U. Levinson et al. (Eds), Schooling the symbolic animal (pp. 62-65). Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield. (Original work published 1972). Bourdieu, P. (1991). Authorized language. In J. B. Thompson, G. Raymond & M. Adamson, (Ed. & Trans.), Language and symbolic power (pp. 107-116). Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press Bruner, J. (1990). Acts of Meaning. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Byram, M. (1997). Teaching and assessing intercultural communicative competence. Clevedon, England: Multilingual Matters. Wheatley, M. (2005). Finding our way. San Francisco, CA: Berrett-Koehler Publishers.

Professional and Educational Goals Statement
May 2009

In April of 2009, I finished my coursework in the PhD in Education Program. As I prepared my portfolio for a comprehensive review, I reflected upon my original goals statement. The following is an update of my professional and educational goals.

The Journey
It is hard to believe that almost three years have passed since I began my doctoral journey. It began with the Ways of Knowing course in the fall of 2006. I remember my frustration during the first few weeks because nothing was making any sense. After finishing my M.Ed that summer, I believed that my PhD coursework would essentially be a continuation of what I had been doing in the master's program. I could not have been more wrong. After two weeks, I realized how little I actually knew. As I ate my first piece of humble pie, I spent hours on the Internet using Google to find information on the cognitive revolution, so that the words of Jerome Bruner in Acts of Meaning would become meaningful to me. This was rather ironic.

The connection between meaning making and culture that Bruner proposes in his notion of folk-psychology resonated with me. But, it was the work of Pierre Bourdieu that changed my thinking about the field of foreign/world (FL/WL) education. I have used the following quote in several of my papers as I believe it eloquently expresses the symbolic power of language:

As soon as one treats language as an autonomous object, accepting the radical separation which Saussure made between internal and external linguistics, between the science of language and the science of the social uses of language, one is condemned to looking within words for the power of words, that is, looking for it where it is not to be found.

By the end of Ways of Knowing, I was asking questions such as, whose languages and cultures are considered "the legitimate" in our post-colonial Western education system? Who is allowed to study these languages? And, what paradigms for conducting second language acquisition research are valued? I spent the next three years investigating this question from a variety of lenses, including critical pedagogy, sociocultural theory, and educational anthropology.

As I look back at my original goals statement, I said that I wanted to pursue a PhD in curriculum and instruction. That specialty was no longer offered as I put together my program of study. This did not matter. After that first semester, I knew my major would be multilingual/multicultural education. And, because we live in a digital world, I made instructional technology my minor. I have no regrets over these choices. This is because my professional goal to work as a language educator, preparing language teachers to meet the needs of today's diverse language learners, has not changed. However, now this goal is coupled with my desire to conduct research that will challenge existing paradigms for teaching and learning foreign/world languages.

Preparing Language Teachers to Teach Languages and Cultures for Global Citizenship

Daughter: Daddy, when they teach French at school, why don’t they teach us to wave our hands [like Frenchmen do when they talk}?
Father: I don’t know, I am sure I don’t know. That is probably one of the reasons why people find learning languages so difficult.
–Gregory Bateson

Why do language teachers continue to struggle to teach the nuances of languages and cultures in their lessons? This question has become more relevant as technology has facilitated the globalization of economies and societies that had previously been disconnected. Simply put, today's language teachers need to do a better job of educating for global citizenship and language educators need to do a better job of preparing FL/WL teachers to do so. I believe that much of this problem is related to our current focus on the development of communicative competence at the expense of preparing today's language learners to be cultural mediators. This problem becomes more complex by issues of power and authority in the FL/WL classroom. We cannot assume that these issues will just disappear on their own. It is likely that many of our language teachers have not yet fully developed the knowledge, skills and dispositions that we are expecting them to model in their cultural lessons. Michael Byram (2008) warns that "it is possible that biculturals [referring to language teachers] are ethnocentric in two cultures, just as monolinguals are can be ethnocentric in one" (p. 72). Over the last several semesters of my coursework, I have refined my views of this topic. Halfway through the program, the question for me was from what perspective would I conduct my dissertation research.

When I began the doctoral program, I had been teaching Spanish with the Department of Modern and Classical Languages. I initially thought that I would focus my dissertation research on post-secondary language education, with perhaps an intervention that included technology. I had several conversations with the Director of the Beginning Spanish Program at GMU about the use of web logs to enhance the development of reading and writing skills with beginning language learners. We had discussed writing prompts for the blogs that asked students to think critically about cultural differences among Spanish speaking countries. The use of blogs could be a way to teach culture that extended beyond the trivia presented in the required textbook. Along my journey, my interest shifted from teaching a foreign/world language to preparing FL/WL teachers for licensure.

Since making this change, I have been fortunate to work as a teacher educator with the foreign/world language licensure program at GMU. These teaching experiences did not occur in isolation from my research interests. With each course that I taught, I reflected on the effectiveness of my instructional practices. These reflections were then followed by changes--including new readings and activities-- for the licensure candidates to think critically about their pedagogical beliefs and the diverse needs of today's language learners. Though I have found teaching in the licensure program to be a challenge, it has been very rewarding. I know that I have grown and will continue to grow as a teacher educator. These experiences have also contributed to my knowledge as a researcher. I look forward to using my experiential knowledge in my dissertation research and beyond.

Becoming a Leader in FL/WL Teacher Education and SLA Research

So, what shall I do beyond the dissertation? Answering this question is perhaps counting my research chickens before the eggs of my dissertation have hatched. But I shall finish my dissertation, if all goes as planned, in the first half of 2010. For me, completing my dissertation is a stepping stone to what I would like to do with the rest of my professional life. Becoming a leader in FL/WL education and SLA research may seem like a lofty goal, but I have had exceptional mentors throughout my program with whom I hope to continue to collaborate. With their guidance, I have presented at workshops as well as local, regional, and national conferences. I have also had experiences writing for publication and reviewing articles for two different publications. There is no doubt that this is the kind of work that I would like to continue to do, always with the goal to push the envelope of my own thinking as well as the existing paradigms in my field. As Margaret Wheatley (2005) says, "people like all forms of life, only change when something so disturbs them that they are forced to let go of their present beliefs... change occurs only when we let go of our certainty, our current views,and develop a new understanding of what is going on" (p. 104). Both in my doctoral dissertation and in my future scholarship, I shall strive to be an agent of change.

References:

Bateson, G. (2000). Why do Frenchmen? In Bradley A.U. Levinson et al. (Eds), Schooling the symbolic animal (pp. 62-65). Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield. (Original work published 1972).

Bourdieu, P. (1991). Authorized language. In J. B. Thompson, G. Raymond & M. Adamson, (Ed. & Trans.), Language and symbolic power (pp. 107-116). Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press

Bruner, J. (1990). Acts of Meaning. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Byram, M. (1997). Teaching and assessing intercultural communicative competence. Clevedon, England: Multilingual Matters.

Wheatley, M. (2005). Finding our way. San Francisco, CA: Berrett-Koehler Publishers.

Updated May 2009