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Welcome to my TESOL website!
“What is TESOL,” you ask? I’m glad you did! TESOL is an acronym (a series of letters which can be pronounced as one word, but actually stands for as many words as there are letters in the acronym in question; other familiar acronyms are: “USA” for United States of America; UFO for unidentified flying object – a flying saucer – and NATO for North Atlantic Treaty Organization. In this case, TESOL stands for Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages, the academic field in which I expect to graduate with my M.S.Ed. (Master of Science in Education) later this year.
Other related acronyms you may have heard or read include: ESL (English as a Second Language), EFL (English as a Foreign Language) or ESOL, which is the same as TESOL, but without the “Teaching” part, as in: “Yes, we have an ESOL program here. You may register beginning July 5th.”
I have designed this part of my website to be equally useful for teachers and students, as well as to serve as my professional “calling card,” a centralized place where anyone interested in this field, or specifically in my approach to the field may find the answers they may be looking for. Please feel free to poke around, taking note of whatever strikes your fancy, and using the “E-Mail Me” link to contact me with any questions or comments. If you are a student, you may want to start with my “Students” page. This is where current students may find information which will help them complete whatever current assignments they may be working on. Teachers should start out at the “Teachers” page, on which I provide lesson ideas, as well as the occasional complete downloadable lesson, for which, please give me credit, referencing the Teachers page and the specific file you choose to utilize.
Those more interested in theories of language teaching and SLA (Second Language Acquisition) should click the “My Take On TESOL” page, the main purpose of which is to serve as a clearinghouse for short articles I will write and upload from time to time on a variety of TESOL-related subjects. Important Note: These viewpoints are all mine, not those of anybody else unless I cite them somewhere in the relevant document. In fact, I have intentionally taken unorthodox positions on several well-known questions within this field, and my main hope for the materials I offer on the “My Take” page is that readers will come away with new ways of thinking and talking about these problems – ones which will (hopefully) liberate our field from ways of thinking I believe are no longer useful for language teachers and their students.
The "Links" page provides just that -- a few links to websites which may prove interesting and useful to TESOL professionals and students alike. These may change from time to time -- either because I find new online resources or because old ones redirect, or disappear entirely. If that happens, please let me know through the "E-Mail Me" link.
Thank you again for taking the time to visit this part of Ben Bangs dot com! Your interest in the field of my livelihood is most gratifying indeed.
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