Jihee Im

About Jihee

Jihee is a first-year graduate student in the LLT program. She graduated from SUNY Oswego in 2018 with a B.S. in TESOL and a minor in Linguistics, and a master’s degree from Arizona State University in TESOL.

Jihee had opportunities to work with diverse range of students, where all of her students were English language learners, and around 90% of them were refugees who came to the States and had to acquire English as a new language in order to actually survive. While forming classroom environment based on these learners, she learned that they come from such diverse backgrounds such as, culture-wise, learning-wise, and linguistic & prior knowledge-wise.

Based on her experience, she gradually narrowed down her interest in to learning more about forming a classroom environment where the teacher can best satisfy the different needs of the diverse students based on their prior knowledge, language learning competencies, assets & interests, and even their experiences. However, for the teacher to know all these for each student, she believes that building a positive relationship with the learners is the first step.

Jihee thinks teaching is worthwhile and rewarding as educators can see their learners move a step closer to their goals.

Email: jihee.im@wsu.edu