I am writing to apply for the position of Assistant Professor of Reading and Study Strategies and Tutor Program Administrator at St. Cloud State University (SCSU). I hold a doctor of philosophy degree in Foreign, Second, and Multilingual Language Education (within the TESOL and ESL programs), particular specialization in teaching English reading and writing, with an interdisciplinary specialization in Educational Technology. Moreover, I have experience in teaching and/or tutoring diverse learners in English reading and writing in EFL and ESL settings. I also possess knowledge of developmental programs and research. I am confident that my educational background and teaching and tutoring experience enable me to make contributions to SCSU …show more content…
For example, one of the studies I conducted in my second doctoral year examined how ESL learners’ previous L1 and L2 (English) learning experience might impact on their current English reading development when studying in the US. The result reveals that their past English learning background closely correlates with their later English reading challenges and development. Another research article that I am writing and planning to submit to a peer-review journal is part of my larger research project examining international graduate students’ academic challenges during their acculturation and the role of technology during the process. This article particularly investigated international graduate students’ reading difficulties and how they coped with the difficulties during their academic acculturation. Data were collected through a self-designed survey, interviews, weekly journals, document collection, and field notes. The finding shows that the participants confronted reading challenges in their early graduate study years, such as not understanding disciplinary terminology and language, having slow reading speed, not grasping main ideas in texts, and not critically reading academic texts. This study suggests providing international students appropriate reading instruction in their early graduate study years so they could cope with their reading difficulties with learned reading