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My name is Carlos Baez I am originally from Mexico, I am a fraternal twin and an eighty’s kid. This old picture with my twin sister Maria is the only picture we have as children.

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I grew up very close to my sister; our careers are similar too, we both became teachers and currently work in university contexts, she works in Mexico, and I teach in the U.S.

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I have a BA in TESL from the University of Puebla, Mexico, and a MA and Ph.D. in Spanish from Ohio University and the University of Minnesota respectively. Before I moved to the U.S. in 1997, I taught English as a second language in Mexico for two years in a university context, this teaching experience included the four basic L2 abilities, listening, speaking, reading, and writing. As a graduate student, I also taught Spanish writing composition several times. I have taught L2, English in Mexico, and Spanish in the U.S., all my career.

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Teaching ESL has always been a passion for me, unfortunately I only had the chance to teach it for two years while in Mexico. I have lived and taught Spanish in the U.S. for the last 25 years. I enjoy teaching Spanish because I love my language and culture, however, at this point in my life I am willing to re-take English language to possibly go back to Mexico and teach it. Writing is an essential ability and I hope to learn a lot in this class to be better prepared to retake my TESL career.

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During the years I have lived in the U.S. I have been connected to the Minnesota Hispanic community; this has allowed me to see the need of Hispanic adult immigrants to learn English in a formal setting. I would love to have the opportunity to serve these immigrants by teaching them ESL. I know that oftentimes adult immigrants may feel less intimidated about dealing with an English teacher who is Hispanic just like them. So, I want to be the best prepared as I can to be able to serve my community.

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My home language is Spanish, and I use it at home with my wife and children and at school with my students every day. My two children are bilingual and bicultural, we follow Mexican traditions and enjoy watching soccer on TV and attending matches.

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My social media language is Spanish, I use social media to communicate with my extended family in Mexico. Since my graduate studies have been in Spanish, my academic language is Spanish too, I am a bit worried that this class is too advanced for my abilities to write extensively in English. I am in a turning point in my life regarding my career; this class is very important to me because I am planning to start teaching ESL either in the U.S. or in Mexico soon.

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The readings for week 1 introduce issues on graduate studies writing and publishing. As I embark in this class with the objective of preparing professionally to teach ESL, I can see that the writing I will be required in my classes will not be an easy task. However, it is reassuring to see that I am not alone in this, that there is a community of academic writers, research, resources and experience to make my personal journey smoother.

The ideas that I found most interesting from this week’s readings are these:

in Casanave and Vandrick I agree that writing for publication may be a daunting experience, however, their argument that writing is a complex process even for seasoned writers and that there is nothing magic about producing good writing is convincing. I also agreed that participation is a great way of learning writing.

I found extremely useful Patricia Roberts Miller advise on how to write academic papers. I found interesting that even if there is a consensus about how a paper must be written, there is still room for options and different ways to write a paper.