When I started teaching ESL, although I thought I had accumulated enough knowledge to go into the classroom, I was not sure my college professors would have approved of my performance – not because I was not ready to reconstruct retroactively the best moments of our methodology classes. What I was looking for was a collection of every conceivable piece of information that would allow me to recover bits and pieces from every nook of my memory (and add my imagination) to communicate with my students in a way that they would really benefit from our exchange of ideas.
I was trying to find the best way to get ready for my first classroom assignments, but then came the frightening realization that I could not find all this information in a book. Deep down in my heart I deemed myself unprepared for the uphill battle, and indeed I was groping in the dark with no palpable solution in sight.
One thing I knew for certain: that somewhere along the way I was going to collect, from my own experience, what I thought would be best for my students. The intensity and scope of my perceptions led me nowhere, only to realize that Toni Morrison was right when she said that if you can’t find the book you want to read, you must write it yourself.