Academic Resilience in an Academic Setting: Auto-Ethnographic Research on Five Years of Teaching from COVID-19 to Implementing AI into High School German and ESL Courses

Abstract

The purpose of this auto-ethnographic research was to self-reflect on my teaching practices over the past five years, in order to determine if my teaching practices satisfied the requirements to demonstrate: 1) my ability to construct an academically resilient German program in an academic institution; 2) my ability to lead a resilient German and a resilient ESL program in an academic institution; and, 3) my ability to utilize the resources available through the academic institution to plan for and respond to potentially harmful provocations, as they relate to the German and ESL programs I was in charge of. This study followed five years of teaching mixed grade level (9-12) high school classes, including pull-out, ESL classes, German 1, 2, Honors 3, and AP 4 classes over the school years 2020 through 2025. The data collected was placed in dialogue with the term, Academic Resilience, as a method of examining authentic situations in an academic environment. The results of this study show that over the past five years, a series of potentially harmful provocations were responded to in an academic environment, in such a way as to protect and strengthen the German and ESL programs that I was in charge of. The implications of this study promote that educators charged with leading academic programs should review the potentially harmful provocations that occurred in authentic situations in academic environments to determine if the educators could adopt the stated implemented strategies into their professional practices. The following are appended: 1) References; 2) AI Glossary; and 3) Assemblage of Instructional Activities.