Thank you to the class for sharing their work with us!
There are many online assessments to help you learn more about careers you might like. Here are just a few!
Student Monitors
Student Monitors provide supervision of students throughout the school day, including in the classroom, hallways, lunch, recess, and at arrival/dismissal. They help maintain order; operate technology; performs administrative and non-instructional duties; ensure student safety; and work with individual and small groups of students.
Student Monitors are needed at schools across Fairfax County. Positions start at $15 per hour. You can learn more and apply by clicking here.
Walt Whitman Middle School in Alexandria is looking for new Student Monitors. If you'd like to learn more, contact Lindsey Miller, Administrative Assistant to the Principal. She can answer questions, give you a tour of the school, and help you apply for the job. She said many of their Student Monitors go on to be Instructional Assistants! You can email her at lmiller2@fcps.edu or call 703-660-2405. One FCPS ACE ESOL student already works at Walt Whitman Middle School - read her profile here.
Substitute Teachers
FCPS needs substitute teachers. Substitute teaching is a great opportunity for stay-at-home parents, retirees, college students, and anyone who wants a flexible work schedule. If you are interested in substitute teaching, you can choose which days you are available, the grade levels you would like to teach, or the schools where you want to assist.
Find out more and sign up for an information session by clicking here.
Source: https://www.indeed.com/career-advice/resumes-cover-letters/resume-language-skills
You should include a Skills or Qualifications section on your resume. This is where you include your special skills, such as software programs, technical skills, and languages. You can include languages here. For example:
Skills
If you speak many languages, you might want to make a separate section:
Languages:
Here are some different ways you can describe your language skills:
Caro was an Advanced Student in the FCPS ACE ESOL program. She moved to the United States in 2000 from Ecuador, and Spanish is her native language.
She worked for a school as a family services assistant for many years, and wanted to get a promotion. She had interviewed for the new position before, but didn’t get it. She contacted the Career Navigator for practice with interviewing. After practicing for the interview several times, she was able to get the promotion!
She has good advice for other English learners. She says that most importantly, “it is essential to understand that learning is work. Sometimes it is easy, and sometimes it isn't easy, but there is always work involved.”
She recommends these strategies for improving your English:
Caro says something that helped her was to have a collage of pictures in her room with the things she dreamed of having in America, like a house, a good job, and a college education.
As Caro says, “The way to achieve good fluency and vocabulary is to lay one brick every day. This means to practice and study every day to achieve your goal.” She sends her best wishes to all the current learners!
Dragana moved to the United States from Serbia in 2018. She started taking FCPS ACE English classes that year at Bryant. She also took classes online in 2020. Her native language is Serbian.
In Serbia, she worked a lot! She worked at a radio station for 24 years. She loved it – she worked with everything from sound, to advertising, to talking to callers on the radio! She also worked at a taxi station during that time. She calls herself a “workaholic.”
In January 2021, she saw a post on the Bryant Facebook Group about a virtual career fair for FCPS Classroom Monitors. She got help updating her resume for this new position from the Career Navigator and applied for the job. In total, Dragana got invited to 11 interviews and received 5 job offers!
She accepted a job at Whitman Middle School earlier this year. That position was temporary but when it ended in June, she was asked to apply for a different aide position at the school. Now she’s working in a third position at Whitman Middle School: she’s a Student Monitor. She also works at Bryant as an ACE ESOL site assistant on Monday and Wednesday nights! She still enjoys working as much as she can.
Dragana has some good advice for other English learners. She said that in the United States, you can work in a field you love, but you have to know what you want and then work toward that. Before she got her job with Whitman Middle School, she volunteered as an assistant for an ACE ESOL class. This helped her get more experience and practice English – and gain confidence.
Dragana says, “Work with your hands when you’re young and with your head when you’re older.” She said when you are young it is a great time to work jobs that require moving, standing, and working with your hands. When you’re older, your mind is better than ever and then it is good to have a job that uses your brain.
She knows that being an English learner can sometimes be frustrating. There were times she knew she could do a job, but it wasn’t possible because of her English level. She said, "The key is to practice every day – and never give up!"
Making phone calls is an important part of doing business in English. Telephone conversations, especially business telephone conversations, follow certain patterns:
Of course, all business phone conversations do not follow this script. But this is the basic outline for most business telephone conversations, especially those made to request information or ask for clarification.
How to Find Volunteer Opportunities
