Classroom metaphors:My ideal Classroom

My ideal classroom would be like a greenhouse hence it is a place where you can take care of your plants; thing that requires time and effort to see them bloom. In this way, we as teachers are the gardeners who are constantly watering students learning by bringing them new learning experiences that will later help them to accomplish their goals. In consequence, my objective as a future teacher is being patient and committed with my students development. I will help them to become better and better from the very begging; just as a gardener does by taking care of a plant from the moment in which its roots touch the ground.

Opening a classroom door

Opening a classroom door

   As a preservice teacher, I have had many experiences in which I have seen different methodologies that teachers use at the moment of teaching. Some of them were focused on form, which are the ones that are related to the traditional way of teaching, while others were focused on meaning, which is related to the meaningful learning process.

  The classes that were focused on form, presented a lack of dynamic activities, therefore students didn´t participate that much of the class. They seemed to be bored because they didn’t feel encouraged to learn English. The regular activities were dictation, translation and memorization so there were no chances of practicing communicational skills.

  On the contrary, the classes that were focused on meaning gave students the chance of learning through a variety of experiences that were led by the teacher since he/she was a facilitator of new learnings. 

   All the activities were previously presented by inductive exercises that encouraged students to participate in the lesson by talking with other classmates or just by doing the activities that were told to do, as they were dynamic and easy to follow. Some of them were: conversation practice, grammar games, mimics, follow the song, picture strip story and guess the animal.

  For me, traditional classes were less effective than the dynamic ones, hence they were focused on grammatical aspects that would be no longer remember. In contrast, dynamic lessons were strongly effective, as their activities were adapted to students’ necessities and related to personal experiences to make them more meaningful for students learning process.

An English demo class: Are there any choices you would have changed?

Are there any choices you would have changed?

   As someone who has lived both experiences, being a student and being a teacher, I can tell that it is something that has helped me to understand better the work of a teacher since it is really difficult to anticipate the possible situations that can interrupt the fluency of a class. Nonetheless, after watching this video I've realized that by using different strategies, it is easier to deal with some essential problems.

  Many of the problems I have seen are related to students' concentration, hence it is easy for them to get distracted, but on the video, I could notice that the teacher used different strategies that benefited his work. He gave a well-prepared class in which every activity was timed. This helped the teacher to avoid common distractions, as they are chatting before or after completing the tasks. 

  Another thing that I consider interesting and useful to do, is preparing students for the content that is going to be later seen. Therefore the warm-up activity that this teacher prepared was a good resource for activating students' prior knowledge, in order to know what they already knew about Thanksgiving Day, and in that way, to cover the information that they didn't handle yet.

  Finally, another positive aspect that I could observe during his class, was that he used written material for reading, but the way he took advantage of it was dynamic since he asked different students to read and tell what they could understand, but then he pointed to another student to summarize what his classmate had just said. 

 As a result of his strategy, students had to be always aware of what was happening in the classroom and if they got distracted, he restated what they were studying. 

  Personally, despite that there were a few aspects that I didn't like, I agree with most of his work, thanks to the fact that there was no down time during the class. Additionally, he worried about giving a start and a close to the lesson, with activities that helped students to get a logical understanding of the topic. So, for these reasons, I wouldn't have changed any essential aspect of his class.

My Teaching Philosophy

My Teaching Philosophy

Every time I’m next to a new internship experience, there is a question that comes to my mind and it is related to how I’m going to teach in the near future as an L2 teacher, but my answer to this very same question has changed through all the things I’ve seen and learned during my time at the university.

The first time I got into the English Teaching Programme my idea of an L2 teacher was that no matter what I had to be, firstly, someone respectful and responsible with the kids I was going to be in charge of. Nowadays this idea has not changed, in fact, it has become stronger since now my idea of an effective second language teacher is strongly connected to a leadership role. Consequently, for me, a teacher has to be like a role model for students on what is known as a consistent person who is coherent with the things that he/she says and does, because only in that way students will see him/her as an authority within the classroom. In this sense, I’m not saying that authority teachers have to act as a dictator but as someone who is an important part in the construction of students’ integrity, as it is being respectful about others or being mature enough to take over their actions.

In addition, another element that I consider that is inherent to an effective second language teacher, is the way on which he/she prepares and gives his/her lessons, as it is something very important to have into account at the moment of teaching. Therefore, by preparing his/her lessons, the teacher will know what methods or strategies will be more effective for the content that is going to be later seen. For this reason, it is necessary to get closer to students in order to know them and understand how they think and what their necessities are. By doing so, teachers will be building a relationship based on trust and respect and also, covering the learning process of the students with special needs. 

Having said that, not all students have the same way of learning and studying a new language could be something very difficult for someone who has not been encouraged to do it. So, from my experience, I can tell that if a student is not positively encouraged by the teacher to learn a new language, it is possible that he/she will be not willing to do it. It is for this reason that we, as teachers, must innovate in the way we teach and also we have to work with different activities to reinforce the different abilities as they are speaking, listening, reading and writing.

There are many ways to achieve a meaningful learning process, nonetheless, for me, one of the most effective ones is using experiences that are common for students to face at their age, hence these situations will be something with which they will feel identified thus they will talk or write about them from what they already know. 

Another effective strategy is that, as a new language is something that is gradually achieved, it needs to be taught in a progressive way. So, giving different tasks and increasing their complexity little by little, will help students to improve their vocabulary and gradually internalize their continuous exposure to L2.

And finally, all this is accompanied by how the teacher gives the class. If he/she is dynamic and extroverted, students will feel more interested in participating of the class, but if this is not the case, we have to try to base our classes on the way students learn and adapting our strategies to their needs instead of expecting them to adapt to the way we teach, which can be very routine and monotonous.

This is my teaching philosophy and how I expect to be in the near future, as a teacher who is really into helping students to learn a new language, by encouraging them to develop new skills and continue practicing to become better on the acquisition of an L2.

Autobiography: Why English Pedagogy? by Montserrat Hormachea

Autobiography: Why English Pedagogy? 

   As a child, I was born and raised in Valparaíso, a well-known city by tourists and navigates since it is one of the main seaports of Chile. I´ve lived, studied and worked in this city for several years because, for me, it is a place that brings you the privilege of living different experiences, due to its multicultural environment.

 During my childhood, I used to play and run along the old streets and squares of Valparaíso. These places were where I got my first approaches to the English language, hence I always tried to talk to foreigns, but they couldn't understand what I was saying... Now I can tell why; it was because the only words that I knew in english were " Cat" and "Dog". After that, I begged my mom to teach me some other words so I learned numbers, colors, animals and letters.

  My second approaches to the language were when I was studying in a public primary school, where I learned a few things, but when I was at the secondary, my mom decided to pay for a private school, where English lessons were in an advanced level, therefore I had to study a lot to reach the standards levels.

  It was during the last two years before going to university, that I realized that I wanted to study English and all started when I met Miss Alvarado. She was a really good teacher and I've always admired her for that. She used to teach us English by playing plays, creating songs or by other dynamic strategies so as I never got bored in her classes.

 Me and Miss Alvarado started to share some hobbies and one of them was reading. As a result of that, she always recommended me books until one day, when she lent me Harry Potter's original english version. I had already read the spanish version, but she suggested to try it in English. When I did it, it just blew my mind. Thanks to that, I got a different perspective about translation hence it is very difficult to keep the original sense of something when you translate it to another language. After that important event, I came to the conclusion of studying translation at Universidad de Playa Ancha.

   In the year 2014 I started the English Translation and Interpretation program and I was very excited about all related to English, but I definitely realized that I didn't want to be in front of a desk getting immersed on books or scientific articles all my life, because I liked reading but just for joy, not for something that I could get paid for. Nevertheless, I didn't want to give up on English so I talked to Miss Alvarado and she invited me on a missionary trip to the south of Chile, so I accepted her invitation.

  During our stay in Temuco, I had to assist Miss Alvarado in her lessons that were about biblical stories. In many times I had to imitate animal sounds, play with the kids and explain them the morals from the stories and by doing that, I felt glad, thankful and delighted for the experience that I shared with those wonderful kids. Thanks to that special moment is that today I'm studying the two things that I enjoy the most: English and Teaching.

A learner's personal insvestment in what she/he is learning is crucial for success

A learner's personal investment in what she/he is learning is crucial for success

Investment

According to Professor B. Norton, “the construct of investment signals the socially and historically constructed relationship of learners to the target language and their sometimes ambivalent desire to learn and practice it” (Norton, 2013). Consequently, it can be said that Investment is related to how the relationship between an L2 learner and the target language has been constructed by experiences that are linked to his/her story and his/her perception of the target language. Therefore, when talking about an “ambivalent desire”, it refers to the interest that an L2 learner shows for learning, understanding and practicing the target language because it can be something desirable or undesirable. Thereby, English learners can react in different ways at the moment of learning, an element that can affect English language acquisition inside and outside the classroom.

Agency as a component of Learner’s Investment 

As it has been already mentioned, there are personal experiences that can affect learners' decision for learning English because of how they have been taught. Through these experiences, students can show High agency or Low agency.

Agency refers to the perspective in which “knowledge is seen as “constructed” through a process of taking actions in one’s environment and making adjustments to existing knowledge structures based on the outcome of those actions. The implication is that the most transformative learning experiences will be those that are directed by the learner’s own endeavors and curiosities.” (Lindgren & McDaniel, 2012) Or in other words, “Another way of thinking of learner agency is when learners have “the power to act” – when learning involves activity and initiative on the part of the learner themselves, and not just the teacher, curriculum, and/or resources, etc” (Pllc.fi.ncsu.edu, 2019). Consequently, the Agency is understood as the initiative that a student demonstrates at the moment of learning a new language, in this case, English. 

This term also helps to discriminate positive experiences from negative experiences, since the first one is related to High agency and to the fact that initiative comes from the learner, while the second one corresponds to Low agency and to the fact that initiative is not seen as something that comes from the student, but as something that has been imposed by someone else.

The following chart represents better this idea: 

It can be better understood in the following interview:

The participant is a translator who has been taught by handouts and books focused on grammar, which means that his teachers’ methodology was focused on form instead of meaning: 

¿Las clases se enfocaban más en el aspecto gramatical o en un aprendizaje significativo? Es decir ¿ estaban enfocadas en las necesidades de aprendizajes del alumno ( cómo aprendían) o en los aspectos gramaticales propios del inglés? 

“Las clases estaban más enfocadas al aspecto gramatical, de hecho aplicábamos bastante memoria. Además eran bien parecidas a las clases que dan en la universidad. No se ocupaba nada dinámico que yo recuerde”. 

These words reflect that there were not essential efforts for providing a positive experience at the moment of teaching, which means that this participant’s experience was an example of Low agency. Therefore it is possible to say that his teachers were not interested in student’s need, as a consequence the way this participant was taught was imposed: 

¿ Cómo eran tus profesores? 

“Mis profesores no eran muy empáticos la verdad; eran muy fríos. De hecho, se parecían bastante a los profesores que tuve en la universidad. Eran tan cuadrados, que no había forma de lograr que pudieran explicar más profundamente, por lo que uno se veía prácticamente obligado a aprender en el momento. Se hacía necesario entender de una la materia. Al final los profesores no eran los que se adaptaban a las necesidades de aprendizaje de los alumnos, sino que uno mismo era el que se adaptaba a la metodología de enseñanza del profesor”. 

Despite this situation, the participant claims that it was not something negative for him, because he was able to adapt himself to the circumstances and learn from that, which helped him to get used to being constantly exposed to the use of English. 

¿ En algún momento estudiaste inglés por tu cuenta o por motivación propia ?

“Lo que hacía por mi cuenta es que estaba tan acostumbrado ya al inglés (debido a que el inglés de mi colegio era bastante exigente), que mis actividades giraban en torno al inglés. De un momento a otro ya leía todo en inglés, veía videos en inglés, jugaba juegos en inglés… Y eso al final, se dio por sí solo, no fue algo que haya buscado por motivación. Se dio como consecuencia de la necesidad que se creó a un ritmo de inglés más exigente... Aún así, hoy en día mi diario vivir se da en torno al inglés. Si tengo que leer algo, lo hago en inglés; si busco información, busco en páginas extranjeras de fuentes más confiables y así tambien eso me ha ayudado a tener un mejor manejo del inglés en mi trabajo como traductor". 

These last words denote High agency since this participant took advantage of something that could have been a disadvantageous position for his L2 acquisition. Nonetheless, thanks to this later High Agency, is that nowadays his investment on the L2 has improved as well as his English acquisition as a Translator. 

¿Podemos cambiar la educación?

Una de nuestras tareas más importantes como docentes, es lograr una aproximación con los estudiantes, pues ¿de qué manera sabremos qué herramientas implementar si no conocemos a nuestros alumnos?... Todo docente entiende que el material y estrategia educativa a implementar, va estrechamente relacionado con los intereses y necesidades de los alumnos, pero ¿de qué forma podremos lograr conocer sus necesidades si no tenemos una relación de confianza con ellos? Es por esto que, desde un principio como profesores, debemos ser capaces de salir de nuestra zona de confort y jugárnosla al 100% por nuestros alumnos, hallando maneras de poder ser partícipes de sus vidas y así poder lograr despertar su interés por el aprendizaje.

 A continuación les dejo un video muy interesante, en donde la profesora  Romina Igarrote, nos habla acerca de sus experiencia dentro del aula y cómo podemos generar un cambio en la educación a través de la interacción con los alumnos. Espero les guste!!!