An Interview with Tabitha Kidwell, Ph.D. Language, Literacy and Social Inquiry

Tabitha Kidwell

Tabitha Kidwell is a third-year doctoral student in the Department of Teaching and Learning, Policy and Leadership, with a specialization in Language, Literacy and Social Inquiry. Kidwell taught English in Madagascar with the Peace Corps, as well as in France and Indonesia, where she also trained English teachers. In addition, she taught middle school French and Spanish in Ohio. Kidwell is a recipient of the Flagship Fellowship, a multi-year award for outstanding doctoral students given by the University of Maryland Graduate School to enhance fellowship and assistantship awards. On campus, she is a graduate assistant, teaching courses and serving as an editorial assistant, and she also serves as the graduate studies chair for Maryland TESOL. 

[This interview has been edited and condensed.].

Could you tell me about your program and your area of study and what made you decide to pursue this field?

I am a third year doctoral student in the Applied Linguistics and Language Education program, which covers  a lot of different areas of second language teaching, assessment, and learning. My background is in language teaching, which drew me to the program.

I chose the Applied Linguistics program because it brings together both English as a second language, English as a foreign language and foreign language education and really looks at ways that people teach and learn second languages or additional languages. It was really appropriate for me, considering my prior experiences and interests. I am working on my Ph.D. with the idea that I’ll be supporting and preparing language teachers of all stripes to teach English abroad, as well as preparing people to teach foreign languages or English as a second language in the U.S.

Could you speak about your interest in languages, in terms of why you decided to study them in college and continue in the field for your doctoral studies?

I was always fascinated by languages. I grew up in the suburbs of Ohio and I remember from a very young age being at the library checking out picture dictionaries, and at my elementary school wanting to talk to the handful of foreign students. I was fascinated by the idea that there were different people speaking different languages and living in different ways all around the world. I was naturally curious about that and really excited to be able to take foreign languages in middle school and high school—I took both French and Spanish. I really admired my language teachers, so it was really a calling for me.

It’s an exciting opportunity as a teacher to help your students navigate the cultural divide that comes with learning another language. You have to challenge your own cultural assumptions and become more aware of your own cultural assumptions, as well as learning about other people’s experiences. Learning the actual languages makes it exciting to be able to communicate, but in some ways, I think the cultural aspects are even more valuable. Those aspects help you grow as an individual, regardless of the language you’re speaking.

Why did you decide to come to the University of Maryland to pursue your doctoral studies?

Maryland was enticing for several reasons. The program wasn’t just in English teaching — there are programs specifically in TESOL, Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages, and then there are programs in foreign language. This program  merged both of those areas and had a lot of flexibility to meet my interests. I also was really drawn to living in the DC area and having a lot of international contacts and international opportunities, given my background. I had a really strong connection with my adviser and our interests aligned really well. My adviser is Dr. Megan Peercy, and she has been a great support throughout my doctoral studies and provided experience working on research projects, along with being a really good mentor. I think when you’re looking for a doctoral program, it’s important to find an adviser who is supportive and who is responsive.

What is the biggest issue or challenge in your field, as you see it?

My major motivation in becoming a scholar in this field is to prepare novice teachers effectively and equitably, so by that I mean preparing them to enter the classroom ready from day one. Often in traditional teacher education programs, there’s been kind of this implicit expectation that it’s OK for novice teachers to learn on the job, that you learn from teaching that first year, which means that first year’s really hard. I don’t think that’s good enough. I think that as a college of education, we should be preparing our novice teachers to leave our programs and to be sufficiently prepared for that first year, so it’s not such a hard year. Expecting teachers to learn on the job isn’t fair to the novice teachers, and it’s not fair to the students. I’m very interested in learning more about the novice teacher experience, what their challenges are, what their strengths are and how they can be prepared more effectively.

What person or experience has had the greatest impact on your studies so far here at the University of Maryland?

Coursework is great. I learned a lot through coursework, but even more than coursework and my own research, I’ve learned a lot from the graduate assistant opportunities I’ve had that involved working with teachers. One of those was supervising student teachers in their internships, and I love that because you’re in the schools, you’re seeing them in action, you’re giving them feedback, and you’re helping them grow during their internship. I have also loved being able to work as a Teaching Assistant and teach courses, because then you’re really engaging with future teachers about the important issues related to teaching. Some of the research projects I’ve been involved on with Dr. Peercy have been very collaborative research projects with practicing teachers. That has also involved me going out and observing and interviewing and speaking with novice teachers and then working together in a collaborative working group with them. I’d say some of the most important experiences I’ve had here have been the experiences that I’ve had working with teachers in the field, or future teachers, and their preparation. It’s the kind of hands-on experience I’d like to be doing.

Could you talk about your time in undergrad and other related career or other types of experience?

My whole career has been about teaching languages. That was my major in undergrad. My first job after undergrad was in the Peace Corps in Madagascar. It was teaching English in a middle school in this little town on the Mozambique Channel that didn’t even have a road to it, so it was hard to get in and out. There were a handful of native English speakers in the town. It was really exciting. After that, I was in France for a year teaching elementary school English. Then I was back in Ohio teaching middle school French and Spanish, and then I had the two years in Indonesia.

That was a really valuable experience, because I thought it was going to be teaching university-level English classes. I did that at first. I was teaching reading and speaking, but then they found out I had education degrees and they said, “Oh great, you can teach our methods classes. You can teach the future teachers how to teach.” At first, I said “No, I can’t do that. I only have a master’s degree in education.” But the professors in this program had all gotten their degrees in English language and hadn’t done the full degree in education as I had for my undergrad and my master’s, so I said “OK, maybe I can do that,” and I started teaching those methods classes, and that was really the impetus for me to now be working on my Ph.D., to be able to continue teaching that sort of class and preparing future teachers.

So you hadn’t thought about pursuing that before?

I had not thought about it a whole lot, no. I had seen myself as a language teacher and I love teaching languages…but I really enjoyed that experience. I enjoyed having sort of a multiplier effect, as teaching teachers how to do their job well means that more language learners learn more effectively.That’s an exciting opportunity.

Since you have experience in several countries, how has that shaped your outlook on yourself and your career?

I think that every time I live abroad somewhere, I learn more about myself, and I learn more about the nature of language learning and teaching and people in general, because the cultural outlook on the world has just been so different from everywhere I’ve lived. For instance, in Indonesia there’s no idea of wasting time. Time isn’t something to be wasted. It’s not this commodity, so people would come late to a meeting, and nobody would care, except for me. I’d be so angry. People would come late to a meeting, and I’d think, “These people are disrespectful. They’re wasting my time.” Once I looked around and I realized no one else is angry about this, like if I’m the only one upset, where’s the problem here? Maybe I’m the problem. I need to adapt to this culture.”

There’s always situations like that that have pushed me to think more deeply about my assumptions. That has been really valuable both for my own growth and my understanding of students. As an English teacher in the U.S., you’re encountering students from all over the world who are themselves working through those issues in a U.S. context. I think it really has built my intercultural understanding and my ability to build connections across cultures and to understand people’s perspectives, which is a really valuable skill as a teacher. It’s a skill that I try to help the teachers that I work with develop.

What do you hope to do when you graduate?

I’d like to take my experience teaching languages and use it to help future language teachers be prepared to enter the classroom. Based on my own background, I try to keep that broad, because I would be really excited to work with foreign language teachers teaching French or Spanish or Arabic or Chinese in the U.S. context, or to be working with teachers teaching English internationally as a foreign language. There’s such a need here in the United States to teach English as a second language both in K-12 schools and in community colleges and to prepare international students at the university-level, so there are so many directions you can go with language teaching. I am excited to keep those doors open as long as I can and keep exploring those different opportunities, but at heart, I want to work with teachers; I want to help teachers teach language more successfully.

Do you have any advice for anyone who’d like to go on the same path, either teaching foreign language or teaching abroad?

I hear this a lot. People say, “Oh you’ve traveled so much. I’d love to travel, I’d love to do the Peace Corps, I’d love to live abroad,” but there’s some excuse. “Oh, I don’t want to be away for two years,” or “Oh, I don’t speak any foreign languages.” People have this dream, they say, “Oh, I’d love to go to Australia, but it’s too expensive.” Forget the “but.” Figure it out. If you want to travel and if part of you is compelling yourself in that direction, let go of the excuses and the fears, because there’s a way that you can make it happen. Language teaching has been a way for me to do that, but there are lots of other opportunities, such as volunteering or studying abroad. There are opportunities that aren’t expensive. You can get people to pay for it, or get funded, such as by doing your research abroad.

I would encourage people to be open to those opportunities and not let excuses or fear hold you back. Also, I would say be open to international experiences right here. You don’t even have to travel to practice your Spanish or start learning Arabic, especially living in this area. There’s such an international community. There’s a big refugee community in Riverdale. They’re refugees from Afghanistan, some from Congo…so go learn Urdu with them or just be a friend to them. There’s a lot of international people who need a community right in this area.