JOURNAL 3

JOURNAL No. 3

La Plata, Huila September 29th 2015

Teaching  young learners implies not only teaching them speaking, listening, reading or writing but looking at the students as someone who brings their beliefs, their culture and their personal experiences to the classroom. One essential point in my teaching practice is the personal contact with my students. It is necessary that teachers get familiar with the different concerns that affect students. As a teacher, it is my responsibility to know who my students are. Social conditions in public schools are different and very difficult and those conditions affect students learning.   Many of my students work for living, handle with social problems like violence or drugs and even many of them do not have parents that support their learning process. We as teachers should bear in mind that our work deals with human beings rather than subjects. Consequently, I try to talk to my students and listen to them. Obviously, you as a teacher needs to show students what responsibility is even when we have difficult times. Moreover, some students are just sitting down in the classroom because they have to, but they are not really involved in learning. The challenge is to have students invested in the learning process.
For those reasons, teachers need to provide students meaningful and interesting experiences at the school, to make students feel that they really need to attend classes and construct their own knowledge and what it is more important teachers need to make students look at education as the only way they have to change their reality. 

JOURNAL 2

During a class I like to engage students in different kind of activities: individual, pair and group work. In spite of I have a large class, I try to provide all the students the chance to participate actively.  In order to develop some skills in my students I apply different activities into the classroom: role plays, dialogues and written exercises. My students usually prefer to record their performances than to act in front of the class. When they record, I use to show their works and they really enjoy it. For that kind of activities, the school has a bilingual computer room where we can work listening exercises, watching videos, worksheet solving using Word or Power Point. Unfortunately, that computer room does not have internet access but I try to take advantage of the tool.

When I develop a lesson plan, I always begin by asking myself what my students should know and how they can apply what they learn, for example: talking about their daily routine, buying a soda at the cafeteria or describe a Colombian celebration.  To that end, it is necessary to provide real examples and make students use the language in real situations and relate what they learn with their real context. So, a teacher must provide structure and direction in the tasks that students have to carry out. It is necessary that students have a clear idea about what teacher expects them to do in the classroom and in their assignments.  In order to practice the language, I like to organize the English Day so that the students can participate actively showing their talents. As a result, students feel enthusiastic about showing their best performances.

Learning is not an ending process and the teacher is a learner too. I strongly believe that teachers need to continue their professional growth, to do so, teachers can be part of educational associations, to attend conferences or doing advanced studies are excellent strategies to be updated in terms of new methodologies and strategies that emerge every day. Nowadays, technology also provides you a lot of tools to apply with your students. One important aspect is that students are very different today than some years ago so teachers require to share their classroom experiences and gain knowledge from other colleagues too.  

JOURNAL 1

JOURNAL No. 1

La Plata, Huila September 23th 2015

            I would like to share my experience with the class in tenth level. In 1004, there is a student who likes English a lot, his name is Alejandro. Alejandro dedicates most of his free time listening to English songs, watching films and chatting with friends that he has met in the social networks. In fact, he is a student who helps their partners during a lesson because he is the first one that finishes the activities.  Those previous conditions make me think of a different activity for him. After talking to Alejandro, one of the ideas was that he could prepare an oral presentation about any topic. I agree with him, but I recommended that the topic was suitable for all their partners, because when working with teenagers, teachers notice that there are many topics that are quite “complicated” to work. For example: topics related to drugs, racism, sex, ect.    

            During some weeks, Alejandro was reading a short story called “Lost in the cave” and he prepared a power point presentation. Unfortunately, when he was going to present their final work something happened with the equipment. The video beam did not work, the computer did not recognize the file or there was not a classroom for the presentation. Those previous problems teachers have to handle when working with technology. Finally the day arrives and Alejandro could present his topic.

            What I like the most about this presentation was their partners’ attitude and behavior. They were listening to him, paying attention and quite astonished. Alejandro talked about the experience of three friends who had lost in a cave. He used pictures and tries to explain the details of the story. At the end, the students could ask questions but anybody participate. I did not understand the meaning of that silence, but when Alejandro finished, I asked the students if they had understood what he described and many of them talked about general and main ideas, in fact, they use their first language to retell the story. For me, it was perfect! My students have got the message, maybe they do not know in that moment the expressions in English to express their ideas. What is more, Alejandro’s partners wanted to know the strategy that he used to speak English in the way he did. The answer of Alejandro was this: “If you want to learn English, you have to do an extra effort and think that you can learn it….” (English version). 

QUESTIONS ABOUT CONCEPTUALIZING TEACHING

1.   What do you usually do as a teacher? With what kind of rationale?

I try to do my best in every class and I would like to have always a transformative role. However, I think that in this moment I have the three roles: technician, reflective and transformative. Technician when I want my students do not forget the importance of discipline, respect and responsibility. I have a reflective role when I as teacher allow my students to use their abilities to improve their learning and when I use different strategies to engage my students in the learning process. Finally, I am a transformative teacher when I have to handle with social and cultural differences: single parents, loneliness, drugs, poverty etc.

2.   What is your mind engagement like in the professional exercise of teaching?

Since I became an English teacher, I have tried to be very responsible with all my duties. I enjoy to be updated in terms of methodology and strategies. This is one of the reason I started this master program because I could studied a different master program just for the title but this is not my case. Moreover, I like to motivate my students in order they can participate in different activities inside and outside the school.

3.   How would you characterize your professional, personal and experiential knowledge of teaching?

When you decided to be a teacher, you have to bear in mind that to be a teacher in our country is not seem as a significant profession in terms of social recognition and payment. In spite of that I decided to be a teacher because of vocation because I had the idea to “guarantee personal autonomy and personal significance” (Hansen, 19 95).  However along with the experience my knowledge of teaching has changed. For me a teacher is a person who constructs future. The key point here is to move from work to career and then to occupation and finally to characterize teaching as a profession.

4.   How do you see the relationship between theory, research and practice?

I agree with the author when he states differences between theory and practice. Theory in terms of knowledge and content and practice to use the theory in a context. However, Alexander 1986, claims that “to concentrate less on what teachers should know, and more on how they might think”. In my opinion, this statement summarizes one of the purpose of this course, reflecting teaching, in relation to the necessity of developing critical thinking in teacher an also be aware of the role of teachers as reflective practitioners and as transformative intellectuals. 

5.   To what extent is there a cause – effect relationship between teaching and learning?

According to the author “teaching is aimed at creating optimal conditions for desired learning to take place in as short a time as possible”. I think that the relationship between teaching and knowledge is not really a cause – effect, because as the author states teaching is not necessary for learning, a person can learn from experience. The fact is that teaching acts guides and facilitates the learning process in a formal way.

TEACHING METAPHOR

MY TEACHING METAPHOR

My teaching metaphor refers to a journey. A journey implies to bear in mind many details before starting it. Aspects such as time, destination, equipment, itinerary among others are necessary when planning a journey.  In a teaching practice there are amount of issues to consider: students, materials, learning styles, cultural and social background, interest, education policies, etc. When preparing a lesson, teachers need to think about the objectives and the strategies that are going to be used to reach the goals but also, teachers need to provide suitable conditions to promote the learning process.

Each journey is unique and offers new knowledge, even if you return to the same place events are not the same. Students are different, each one of them have their own story that could inspired our job. Unexpected situations like weather or road conditions could affect the normal develop of the journey, but to enjoy the different moments and to have an extra plan always help. This situation is similar with our students. In spite of their personal, social or cultural differences what makes teaching a wonderful profession is to take time to enjoy the diversity and look for options to motivate our students and make the learning process more enjoyable.