Beliefs

Beliefs about English

For me English is as important as any other language in the world. It is a language which represents a culture, a way of life, thinking and acting from a specific group of people. However, this language represents nowadays a broader culture because English has evolved as mean of making money and acquiring or sharing knowledge with the rest of the world. The relevance of this language over others is due to the big impact The USA has on the economic, scientific and military world. That is why this language has been spared over the world not only has a way to know or acquire a culture but as compulsory discipline for this globalized and capitalized world if you want to succeed as a professional. As result of all these events, I am teaching English mainly and not any other language. Nevertheless, English, as any other language, for me is just a mean to share something. In my case that would be knowledge.

Beliefs about learning

For me Learning is a complex and difficult process to explain which involves a series of events and people’s beliefs. This is said because any real learning requires the interaction with the context and other people in order to validate that experience. In other words, learning is living itself because the experience we get from others and our context through our life is the first step towards learning. However, that interaction with other people brings the biggest struggle for learning from our experience, to ask ourselves “why”. In this way we can confirm what we feel and think or modify our assumptions. From this confrontation between experience and thinking, learning is bringing about. That is why, this same process needs to be replicated in our classrooms where the interaction of people based on experiences and knowledge has to be done in order to create learning without imposing it.      

Beliefs about teaching

For me teaching is personal process we conduct in order to share something we know with others. However, this process has to be based on principles and some structures with the purpose of leading someone to discover and validate that knowledge. This process has to end up in a self-discovery of the true rather than imposed. Also, Teaching depends on the teachers’ qualities and objectives because every person has their own perception about the world and knowledge. That is why teaching has to be a process of sharing ideas with the regard of concluding or meeting a collective true based on evidence.

 Beliefs about language teaching  

For me language teaching is a very important profession because it allows teachers to share how important the tools we use for communication are. This profession allows students to learn about how the language they use work. Besides through teaching languages, teachers are able not only to teach how to use the language correctly in its written or oral form but to know the world. This is said because through this art, teachers can related all kind of knowledge, practices and situations where humans being are involved in. in this way the scope of this profession gets bigger and gives the teachers the freedom to play with language in order to teach and show the world with the aim of using the language correctly. As a result, learners have the possibility to see that leaning a language is much more than language rules but a way to express, share and get knowledge from all over the world.     

  

Journal entry 4

Journal entry 4

Today’s lesson was very difficult and I couldn’t achieve the objectives desired for this class which was really important to me. First of all, when I arrived to the school I was told that the students were only having 3 hours of lessons because they had a special event of love and friendship celebration. So, students had the opportunity to go to the school without the regular school uniform. Besides, they were in charge of everything related to the meeting. As a result, most of the students were very excited about the party and the central topic for them was obviously the party. However, I decided to stick to my plan because I thought it was good enough for catching students’ attention. I relied on the fact that this lesson was based on video games with the objective of improving students’ reading comprehension.

When I started the lesson, I showed to the students a video and some pictures related to the video game in order to help them with some vocabulary and motivated them with the lesson. However, most of the students were still focus on the party but I didn’t give up because I thought the main activity with the video game was good enough to make the lesson by its own. Then, I kept giving them instructions in English and showed some commands of the gameplay. To some point I could focus their attention on the lesson while the students were playing the video and reading until music, laugh and noise started to come in from different places.

After that point there was no return. It was very difficult to make the students finished the activity. Most of them were really engaged with the school activity and they were eager to start decorating and preparing themselves for the party. My last resort was to leave the post reading activity as homework. Nevertheless, I really feel the main goals of the lessons were not achieved. After reflecting on this event, I think I should have made changes to the lesson plan or re-schedule the activity because I have had some previous experiences with the same results. However, my big mistake was to take for granted that an activity considered important by me, was good enough by its own for working without help. Finally, this experience helped to always bear in mind that different options must be always set beforehand.

Journal entry 3

Journal entry 3

Well, this lesson I think it was good even though I had to make some changes related to the activities throughout the lesson. I started the lesson with some activities for describing people based on videos and pictures and till that point everything was all right. However, one of the two main activities was to make groups and describe several famous cartoons as part of the principal objective of the session. Then, after explaining the activity to the students they were bored trying to do an activity which was kind of traditional and similar to one we had already done in the previous lesson. So, I decided to change the activity at that moment in order to not to let the activity fails. I create a competition where groups of students had to run to the board, see a picture and write one description of the cartoon. Then, the group with the most correct sentences would win the competition.

After doing this activity I could recognize and understand that even though you use different materials for your lessons if you repeat too often these elements with the same activities, learners might get bored. So, as young learners they need activities which offer movement and joy from some periods of time in order to get the students engaged.

As a consequence of the unexpected change I couldn’t finish the complete activities planned. However, that change helped to save the lesson somehow. Finally, after reflecting on what happened in that lesson, I came to the conclusion that if I were to teach this lesson again, I would probably bear in mind that many children are kinesthetic and also they like to move a lot. So, TPR activities are always good strategies to include in our lesson in order to motivate and engage students with our teaching objectives.  

Journal entry 2

Today’s lesson was carried out with a group of students from sixth grade and I think this lesson was very difficult to apply correctly. First of all, I had to teach this lesson with these students after they had an unusual long break which offered to the students some games and activities carried out by some external personnel. When the students entered to the classroom they were still too active and wanted to keep playing. However, I entered to the classroom with the strong conviction to complete some work left about the present simple in English. So, I started with some examples of routines from several famous people and tried to give them instructions for the rest of the class. After some time, I realized that nobody was doing the activity but talking about the games from the break. As a result most of the students didn’t finish the activity or care about it. After the class was over I was just blaming the students’ attitudes towards the work but at night I could have a second thought.

I realized that I didn’t take into consideration the excitement these young learners have with these games and activities. Then, I came to the conclusion that I wasn’t prepared for catching students’ attention after an event like that. I was just thinking on completing the activity without taking into account that they are just kids and their level of concentration is not easy to handle. That’s why the activity was pretty much a disaster.

Finally, I reflected on what I must do when something similar happen again. I came to the

 

conclusion that simple warm activities which English lessons offer are quite enough catching

 

students’ attention. So, what I need to do next time is to be more touchy on events like these ones

 

and be always prepared with activities which helped me to motivate my students from the very

 

beginning of the lesson.    

Journal entry 1

The objective of the lesson was to try to help the students to retrieve some vocabulary and identify new one related to adjectives and parts of the body based on people from other cultures and countries. I think the objectives were met because most of the students got the main vocabulary we worked and used it in difference ways. The students went throughout the vocabulary exercises with some correctness on how to associate and use adjectives and parts of the body to highlight personal differences or common characteristics among different people. In order to accomplish this goal, I think the use of different materials like a video projector; computer, pictures and videos helped a lot to get students motivated and engaged with the topic. Besides, the variety of activities like describe people around the world and with different cultures improved the motivation of the learners towards speaking and writing. Also, during the lesson the students had to move in order to work in groups, in pairs and individually, as a result the students didn’t get bored or stressed about doing the same kind of activities. Even though the lesson allowed students to talk, had fun with the description of different people and shared information with the teacher, more classroom management was necessary. I said this because while watching the pictures and videos some students got advantage of the situation for being mean with others and as a teacher, I have to foresee these kinds of problems in order to be prepare and have some tools beforehand.

Another thing that I have to foresee is the time. I could not do the lesson completely because there was a change in the schedule time, so I had to improvise some things in order to fit the lesson in the time given. As a reflection, I have to say that I need to have extra plans or ideas prepared in case these extra ordinary events happen. Even though my lesson was planned based on my knowledge and experience, I realized that there is always something which may slip your mind and threat you with destroy your lesson. That is why reflecting and writing about these kinds of problems help you for being prepare the next time.

Finally, I think the best parts of my lesson were the anticipatory set and the activity to activate previous knowledge were good because they were carry out through electronic devices and these mechanisms increase students motivation and interaction. Besides, the use of technology with interactive resources are more appealing to the students and allow teachers to present their ideas or work in many different ways, helping students to focus on the objectives of the lesson while having some kind of fun. Then, presenting the topic in this way helped me to catch students’ attention and kept them motivated. The worst part of my lesson was the way I handled the time, I need to improve this process. Then, if I have to change something to this lesson would be the way to introduce the scanning activity through different pre-activities like showing an example of the activity or to carry out a shorter version of the activity first in order to make the students more aware of what they were supposed to do by themselves.        

My autobiography

My teaching identity: an unexpected but knowledgeable journey.

Mauro Gustavo Suarez

I have to confess that to be a teacher was never an option for me as kid or a teenager. Back in the days as a regular kid my former professional dream was to be a soccer player because that was the activity I did and like the most with my friends from my neighbor. At that time education was not a central part of my life but playing sports and video games. Besides, at that time teachers, from my kid point of view, were boring and too strict.

When I entered my secondary studies, as a teenager many ideological, personal and leisure things changed. As far as I remembered, internet and technology in general were evolving really fast and their impact on every society was huge. This overwhelming process pushed me to learn some English in order to have some control on computers, video games and technology in general. From that time I understood that English was going to be an important issue in my personal and professional life. I remembered that the English teachers in high school were used to work with the audio-lingual method and a lot of translation or grammar exercises were done in those lessons. Anyway, I liked English because then I could read or listen to some music in English with some degree of understanding and that really pleased me. However, my perception on teachers’ profession was still the same. From that time, when I was closed to finish high school I have a very vivid moment where I said to myself that I would never be a teacher because throughout my complete high school education I witnessed how difficult to be a teacher was.

Then, after getting my high school degree I was deciding what to do next in my educational life. I wanted to study system engineering but I could not do it at once because of money, so I needed to wait a complete year. Because of that I decided to study foreign languages at Surcolombiana University. But once again I did it just for the language not for being a teacher because I was waiting to apply for another program I really wanted.

However, through the different courses I took in this undergraduate program at Surcolombiana University, a new perception of what being a teacher came to me. From that point I could understand that being a teacher was more than teach a specific subject. This profession opened my eyes to complete new panorama of our society and gives me tools for understanding social issues which affects who we are and how education could help us for solving this problem. After understanding that to be a teacher was something valuable the only thing left was to face a group of students and survive. Those lessons were really difficult to me but I discovered that practice makes perfect. In this way I could gain some confidence for being a teacher.

After getting my degree as an English teacher in 2009 I worked in private school where I learned a lot because I had to prove my ability as an English teacher all the time but I realized that this school could not fill my professional aspirations. That is why I decided to change the school I worked and I went to a public school which gave a lot of good experiences as a teacher and as a human being because in this context, from my personal point of view, you do not only have to care about teaching English but dive into some social problems which affect these students and prove you as a professional.   

Finally, after getting back these short memories of my academic life, I think that to be a real teacher requires more knowledge, abilities and motivation than any other profession. However, these situations teach you more than any particular lesson. That is why after reflecting on this process now I recognize that being a teacher represents a lot of difficulties but at the same time gives the opportunity to grow as a human being through the reflection you are forced to do every single day from place of work.   

visual metaphor

This visual metaphor represents the way I see teaching in the context I work in with all its pros and cons. First of all, for me to be a teacher is a demanding job which requires a lot of abilities from the person who is going to carry it out. Besides, he/she must take risks all the time in different ways in a context which may not be easy to handle. This person must be prepared all the time with different tools when facing his/her lessons because every one of them is a different landscape with its own threats. Nevertheless, all these warnings and preparations are with the objective to share and help different people in their path towards a better society throughout education.

Moreover, teachers have to bear in mind that this path is no longer easy in a world of unexpected changes and unseen endings which may not necessarily mean bad things all the time. At the end, the satisfaction of reaching the top of the mountain will depend on the way you climbed it and the purpose you have for doing it.