Professional Development Through Community Partnership: How a Class Project Led to Graduate Student Teaching Practices
Abstract
This article is written from the perspective of 4 current MA TESOL graduate students at the Monterey Institute of International Studies (MIIS). These students have written about their experiences by incorporating their theoretical and pedagogical English language-teaching knowledge into the growth and maintenance of a community-based ESL program at the Peace Resource Center in Seaside, California. The article highlights the continual development of their original peace and social justice–themed curriculum, which involves graduate students in Linguistics, Education, and non-TESOL courses at MIIS. The writers respectively reflect upon professional growth as a result of their commitment to the ESL program. In addition, their appendices and details of their work may serve as resources and tools for the TESOL community interested in curriculum development, needs assessment, community-based language instruction, language-program administration, ESL critical pedagogy, and content-based instruction.