Abstract
In this interpretative phenomenological study, I examined the impact of a study abroad student teaching experience on seven student teachers' perception of culture, pedagogy, and use of ESOL (English Speakers of Other Languages) teaching strategies. I analyzed various forms of data using IPA (Interpretative Phenomenology Analysis) with the purpose of discovering participants' personal perspectives and emerging themes to emphasize commonalities of their study abroad experience. In order to honor idiography as an element of IP A, I created a found poem for each participant using poetic transcriptions. As a result of the analysis, I identified several themes and sub-themes that percolated throughout this study abroad experience: expansion of cultural views, pedagogical enlightenment, recognition of value of ESOL strategies, and the impact of becoming an immigrant child. I included participant voices as rich testimony to cognitive, cultural, and pedagogical epiphanies and transformations. The most profound epiphanies occurred in the transformation and expansion of their perceptions concerning culture and the subtle ways culture impacted their thinking, actions, beliefs, values, and their pedagogical classroom practice.