Visit to the West Coast - California

The Fulbright Distinguished Awards in Teaching Program allows all grantees to apply for an additional grant to participate in a conference that is related to one’s inquiry project, which is a wonderful privilege. I got the opportunity to attend The American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages (ACTFL) Annual Convention and World Languages Expo which was held in San Diego at the end of November. It is an annual event that gathers foreign language teachers and scholars from around the country, and the world. It was a huge convention with over 700 educational sessions, up to 20 different lectures and workshops held simultaneously in a massive convention center.

The reason I had chosen this particular convention was that not only was it about language teaching, but it also offered several sessions on differentiation which is what I have been focusing on while here. It was great to listen to and meet different people in the field of foreign language teaching. It was also interesting to notice which languages seemed to be the most popular. Quite a few times I found myself accidentally entering a room full of Chinese teachers listening to a presentation held in Mandarin. Spanish teachers were also very well represented. Most of the lectures were in English, however, and I could find a few interesting sessions in German as well.

Since I knew I was flying all the way to California, I wanted to make the most of my visit, and I feel extremely lucky that I was able to combine school visits with my trip. With the help of my American Fulbright friends I was able to visit three high schools while in California, one school near San Francisco and two in San Diego. It has been wonderful to see schools in different states and get a broader picture of the school system since there are also differences between the states. For example, unlike in Indiana, in California most schools have open campuses, meaning students are allowed to leave the school building, even the school area, during the school days. They also have lunch outside. Another common feature at the Californian schools I visited was a slightly larger number of immigrant students. I met many students who had just recently arrived in the country. I got to visit classes of wonderful teachers who work hard to help each student, even students with very limited literacy skills in their native languages, to get the skills they need to continue their studies in the U.S.

One of the schools I visited was one of the leading project-based schools in the country. I have also had the opportunity to visit other project-based schools in other parts of the country and most of them have been so called charter schools, which means they are more independent than regular schools. These project-based schools are quite impressive since teachers typically work in teams and subjects are linked together in creative ways. A lot of cooperation is also done within the community and the students literally work with real word problems.

It was also great to learn about California as a state. As an example, I was happy to find out that recycling is something much more common in California compared to many other states. For an environmentally conscious person like me, it’s been hard to see the amount of trash many American school cafeterias produce with their disposable plates and cups and not being able to recycle in Bloomington like I’m used to back home in Finland. States and areas differ, and we should avoid making generalizations about the country. 

I was also lucky to have a little bit of free time in both cities. Just like when visiting my teacher friends on the East Coast, I was so warmly welcomed by my teacher friends on the West Coast. They showed me around their beautiful cities and you always see and learn so much more when you meet locals. It was amazing to see the Golden Gate and the hilly streets of San Francisco and be amazed by the beautiful parks in San Diego and catch incredible sunsets by the Pacific Ocean.