As a woman with physical differences due to a disability, when a student opened about feeling isolated in her American class as a refugee, standing out due to her accent and hijab in a white, non-diverse school district, I could connect on a level I hadn’t thought was possible. I had told the student I went to the same high school, and there was also no one who looked like me. That moment reframed everything I thought I knew about teaching. My job isn't just to deliver content, but it's also to make sure every student in my room knows that difference is not a deficiency

Learning a language is frustrating and can feel like a wall between the learner and their goals. For the student who felt ostracized, her wall stemmed from her inability to assimilate into her new environment. For me, currently learning Thai in preparation for teaching English abroad, I believe teaching abroad will deepen my understanding of future students I might have when I return to teach in the US. Being able to remember my own feelings of living in a new country, missing most of the dialogue around me, trying to find my way through this feeling of being a foreigner, is the most authentic way of understanding your students when you’re teaching at home.

My TESOL certification through the University of Montana gave that instinct a professional foundation. Through weekly lesson planning across ages and skill levels, I developed the practical ability to design curriculum with a critical eye, making myself ask not just what I am teaching, but whether it genuinely serves the students.

My own educational experience shaped this belief as much as any theory. I attended an alternative school where learning was instructor-guided but student-led, and curiosity drove the curriculum rather than the other way around. That environment taught me that students invest more deeply when they have ownership over what they are learning. I carry that conviction into my ESL classroom.

In practice, this looks like building units around what students already care about. A student dreaming of traveling to Japan might anchor a unit on travel vocabulary, itinerary writing, and cultural comparison. A student studying biology in another class might bring that content into our language lesson, practicing academic English through material that is already meaningful to them.

This approach is grounded in Social Constructivism, which holds that knowledge is built through social interaction and real-world context rather than passive reception. When students see their own lives reflected in the curriculum, the wall between them and the language begins to come down.

Out of all the lessons covered in this course, the photo-inspired creative writing lesson stood out as the most meaningful for my development as an ESL teacher. It pushed me to think beyond grammar drills and vocabulary lists and instead consider how to create space for students to express themselves authentically in a new language. Designing the rubric was especially eye-opening because it forced me to ask whether my language and expectations were accessible to the students I was writing them for, not just clear to me as the teacher. I learned that good lesson planning is not just about what you teach, but how you make it feel safe and approachable for learners who may feel vulnerable using a language they are still developing. This lesson also showed me that creative tasks like writing from a photograph can lower anxiety and increase engagement, because students are responding to something visual and personal rather than performing a rigid linguistic exercise. Ultimately, this lesson reminded me that the most effective ESL teaching meets students where they are emotionally and linguistically, and that building a classroom where students feel confident enough to take creative risks is just as important as any grammar drills.

Thailand feels like the natural next chapter of my story. To step into a classroom abroad where I will be the one navigating an unfamiliar language, an unfamiliar culture, and the quiet vulnerability of not quite belonging, is an immersive experience to bring home to emigrant students.

My goal in Thailand is the same as it has been at home: to create a classroom where students feel safe enough to make mistakes, see enough to take risks, and are empowered enough to claim the language as their own. A student who feels respected for who they are will always learn more than one who is corrected. I have built my practice around that truth, and I intend to carry it across every classroom, every culture, and every language wall I am fortunate enough to stand beside.