Evan Ortiz

I have completed service hours at elementary schools, high schools, and different ESOL programs, working with teachers and paraprofessionals in a variety of subjects. I have worked in small groups and one-on-one with students, assisting them with their math and language skills and developing their English language proficiency. Through these experiences, I have developed the ability to assess and address my learners' needs and can bridge that gap through my own teaching or with other resources that can assist my students with their specific needs. Teaching has been incredibly fulfilling, and I want to continue building my experience and teach around the world, meeting different types of learners and being a lifelong learner myself. Interdisciplinary studies has greatly assisted me in reaching my goals; I have been able to integrate education and languages to teach English proficiently and better identify the needs of my English language learners, as well as learning how language patterns work to be able to acclimate easier to living in foreign countries and learning the languages that are used in those countries. Interdisciplinary studies has also been very eye-opening in discovering how many things are connected to each other, especially between cultures and languages. I have been able to find resources and know how to search for more resources through this program that will help me in my future jobs and studies.

Whilst volunteering in ESOL programs with ESOL teachers or paraprofessionals, I was able to apply my knowledge of language systems and grammar to teach English. I was able to combine that with my knowledge from the education courses I had taken, which had prepared me in assessing the learning styles of my students and accommodating the material to those different students, as well as being able to see and address where certain students had been struggling and needed help.
Now that I have been learning about interdisciplinarity and how to use it with my areas of study, I have realized how integral interdisciplinarity is in our everyday lives. I have found that I have seen any and most topics and issues throughout my whole life through an interdisciplinary lens, trying to assess things from different perspectives. 

In the future, when I face a situation where I am teaching English as a foreign language, I can refer back to the skills I learned through my education classes and the understanding of linguistics to address language needs. I can use my film minor to assist in using media to bridge cultural familiarity across different languages and use English-speaking movies to assist in their language learning.