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.