Yuanhui (Kim), Gao

Student Number: 599956

Self-Introduction
Being a teacher has always been my dream. Because of my friendships in America, I have
been exposed to the American way of thinking. I am deeply impressed by their open mind,
serious attitude towards work and life, and also by their courage to chase freedom and their
lawful rights. During my last summer vacation, I had the honor of attending an exchange
program between American Binghamton University and our university. It was a good
opportunity for me to visit America, and also the first step to help me realize my dream.
Through this exchange program between Binghamton University and our university, I have
become more confident and not nearly as nervous to talk with foreigners. I have learned so
much in these classes. I have been touched by their creative thinking, new teaching methods,
and teachers always encouraged students to express their own ideas.
My major in this Binghamton University exchange program was also English teaching. I
now understand the different teaching styles between China and American.

In China,

teachers prefer giving the right answer to every question and do not have enough time for
students to communicate. In America, teachers like to ask students to express their own
ideas, and there are no exactly correct answers for questions.
After finishing my Binghamton University program in America, and I had the honor of
obtaining the recommendation letter from professor Mr. Sinclair. I now know more about my
major and have gained more experiences, which is one goal that I have for this TESOL
program in UCR.
Outside the classroom, I spend a large amount of my time and energy to campus activities,
through which I have become more outgoing. I also had a part-time job tutoring a primary
school student English when I studied in Shenzhen University. It was the first time for me to

teach others. When I tutored him, I was very aware of the cultural differences. To be honest,
I was not aware which methods or frameworks that I used to teach him. Tutoring helped me
to be more understanding about teaching and also it made me become more responsible and
mature. In addition, I am willing to be a volunteer. I volunteered to be an assistant teacher to
welcome foreign exchange students to visit our campus, visit our city, and helped them with
their problems during their study in our university.
During the past two years when I studied in China, I learned about some basic theories and
methods of English Teaching. Up until this point, I have not had much practice actually
teaching. In the last quarter of this program, we will have a whole quarter to practice
teaching. Though it will be a real challenge for me because we need to put our theory into
practice and we also need to combine theory with practice, I still look forward to
experiencing being a real teacher to teach in class.
I have many teaching goals. The first is to become clear about the basic theory and
methods of teaching, because the principles and techniques are the base of teaching.
Mastering these basic methods and techniques is necessary for a new teacher. The second is
to learn how to use the theory in the right way to teach students, because the real teaching is
different from what we learned from the books. Different contexts and different contents
require different methods of teaching. In order to make the methods to be more efficient, the
teacher needs to change or combines several methods or techniques base on the contexts and
the contents. The last one is to get some experience in teaching students in the last quarter of
TESOL program. This student teaching in the TESOL program is really different from the
student teaching in China. Firstly, the students are different. In TESOL program, we are going
to teach the students who are from different nationality, and the only way for us to
communicate is English. Besides, we are going to have an instructor to guide us to choose the
teaching topics and help us to prepare for the lessons. I am looking forward to the many

teaching experiences ahead and to reaching my goals.