Sheila Conrad

December 2014
MAFLT Portfolio Reflective Essay

My experience in the MAFLT program has impacted me in many ways. When I first
applied, I stated that my main purpose for pursuing a Masters in the Art of Foreign Language
Teaching was to gain a better understanding of best teaching practice and to improve my
teaching methods. The program has definitely helped me to achieve this goal.
The greatest thing about the program has been the professors. They created meaningful
tasks, such that I could take what I created in class and incorporate it directly into my instruction.
I have been able to create and improve lesson plans, rubrics, assessments, and course syllabi. The
professors are extremely knowledgeable in their field but also truly care about students. Whether
it was a philosophical question about the nature of language or a basic question about a course
assignment, they were quick to provide me thoughtful and thorough responses.
I have really enjoyed the format of the MAFLT courses. Despite being geographically
distant from my classmates and professors, I have felt very connected. Whether collaborating on
a project or communicating via the message boards, my classmates and I have been able to share
language teaching problems and solutions. I have enjoyed reading the others insights, sharing
our best practices, and learning together.
Throughout my coursework as part of the MAFLT program, I have been exposed to
pedagogical developments which have helped me understand the best way people learn
languages. In the beginning, I found it difficult to understand some of the academic research
articles without the help of my professors, but now I feel capable of skimming these articles for
important information and have even produced a few of my own research papers.
Because of what I have learned about Second Language Acquisition, I am now conscious

of producing meaningful input for my students, giving them opportunities to produce the
language, and providing them with meaningful feedback. Thanks to what I have learned from the
Teaching Culture in Foreign Languages course, I understand that culture and language are
inseparable and that culture should not be taught as an isolated feature in language learning but
should encompass everything we do.
Another course for which I was grateful was Assessing Language Teaching and
Research. I learned how to effectuate item analysis and determine test validity and reliability. I
am more confident in the way I assess my students learning, based on ongoing changes I have
made and will continue to make due to what I learned. Also, I experimented with group speaking
assessments and found that they lead to excellent language production from my students, so I
will continue to use these in my assessment repertoire.
In a recent course I took, Language Concepts in Foreign Language Teachers, I had the
opportunity to collaborate with other French teachers to create a Linguistic Survey of the
pragmatic, semantic, and phonological features of the French language. Completing this project
has prepared me to answer questions my own students will ask me about the language.
One truly powerful experience for me during this program was the EM (Experiential
Module). My students are always asking me questions about French culture, especially about
French people their age and about the French education system. The EM allowed me to
investigate a question of interest through an Ethnographic Research Project in Bordeaux, France.
From Dr. Amanda Temples, I learned about ethnographic research methods and interviewing
skills. While in Bordeaux, I was able to interview French citizens, at different stages of life,
about their experience within and opinion of their educational system. I also had the opportunity
to observe for a day at a local collge (middle school). After transcribing the interviews and

compiling my notes, I was able to analyze and identify many of the explicit and implicit
influences on choices French citizens make at different stages which influence their educational
trajectory and their future lives. After writing my research paper, I created teaching materials.
This included a presentation and two interactive activities, which I was able to use this past
semester with my French IV students as part of a unit on the French education system.
I plan to present my research and teaching materials from the Experiential Module at the
Iowa World Language Association Conference this fall so that other teachers and students may
benefit from what I learned. I have never presented at a conference before, but this program has
given me the confidence to do so.
The MAFLT program has given me the drive and the guidance I needed to examine and
improve my teaching practices. I am now able to justify the strategies I use with research. The
coursework has helped me become a better language teacher but has also taught me what it
means to be an effective researcher, a linguist, an ethnographer, and a lifelong learner.