M.A. working toward teaching certification

Kathryn N.

As a child, I loved two things: language and teaching. I would play school with my sisters and borrow books on language from the library. I've studied German for years and taught myself Russian and some Polish with the help of friends. I'm a lifelong learner and have a passion for passing knowledge onto others.

Currently, I'm working toward a Michigan teaching certificate, but I've been teaching and tutoring for many years. I was a math and German tutor in high school. I tutored elementary students in reading and college students in German during my undergrad years. As a Master's student, I taught 100- and 200-level German courses at MSU. After, I taught at Concordia Language Villages for a summer and an after-school class through a metro-Detroit language school.

ESL/ESOL: Studying a foreign language has taught me more about my native language (English). I can talk about grammatical concepts in English, because I've studied German grammatical concepts. Also, I know how the brain learns languages: some of my Master's level courses dealt with Second Language Acquisition and how to teach a language.

Reading, Writing: Majoring in German in college requires a very similar set of skills and knowledge as majoring in English. Like English majors, German majors read and analyze long, complex literature and write papers-- we just do it in a different language.

I've been studying German since 2003, earning a Master of Arts in German Studies in 2013. I spent half a year in Germany, enrolled at the Justus Liebig University in Giessen. I've taught German to all ages of students from 1st graders through college students, and am working toward a teaching certification with an endorsement in German.