Exploring my Teaching Beliefs

Hans Humberto Oviedo Gómez

Reflective Teaching Course

M. A. Edgar Alirio Insuasty

Neiva, October 4^th, 2015

Exploring my Teaching Beliefs

1.      What beliefs or assumptions about language learning and language teaching have you held throughout your English language development and your teaching career?

During my experience as a teacher and bearing in mind my writings posted (Professional Autobiography, 4 journal entries, teaching metaphor), I have concluded on the following assumptions:

Teaching and learning imply social relationships

“…I realize the importance of being sociable and friendly with my students, peers and in general, with the community I belong to…” (Teaching Metaphor)

“…I was learning from excellent teachers who taught me not only knowledge, but also experiences and values…” (Professional Autobiography)

“…I want to contribute in at least a small portion of a better future for this and the coming childhoods…” (Professional Autobiography)

“…The activities were interesting to them, they liked to perform in spite of the short time for preparing…” (Journal Entry 2)

“…they were very active at participating and giving their ideas by supporting them…” (Journal Entry 2)

“…They had to take a role in a debate by supporting their arguments and they did it in a good way…”  (Journal Entry 3)

“…This is done to improve and enrich the debate session into a more enjoyable and challenging activity…”  (Journal Entry 3)

“…This activity was meaningful because students were active at participating and…” (Journal Entry 4)

“…I was giving some feedback and allowed students to be aware about what they were missing…” (Journal Entry 4)

Wondering about possible improvements makes the difference

“I can conclude this is an ongoing process, full of opportunities to grow” (Teaching Metaphor)

“…Meanwhile, I was also attending to different courses to improve my English…” (Professional Autobiography)

“…during the afternoons I used to go to the school with the people who had weaknesses to improved, but in my case I went to learn about more topics because I thought in the mornings English classes were not enough…” (Professional Autobiography)

“…Although a picture was presented, students were a little bit confused about the topic. Sometimes, the language I used was not understandable for the students. I should look for other words like synonyms in order to avoid misunderstandings in the instructions…” (Journal Entry 1)

“…there are some aspects I have to improve if I teach this lesson in the future. First, selecting a…” (Journal Entry 1)

“…In practice, in this second session instructions were clearer than the first session and I tried to be sure my students understood what I needed them to understand…” (Journal Entry 2)

“…In this opportunity, I tried to correct the things I had to improve from the previous lesson…” (Journal Entry 2)

“…One of the things that could be improved is the pacing of the Debate in last session. Maybe, there were some misunderstandings about what a debate is although they have the definition and instructions included on the workshop…” (Journal Entry 3)

“…I think what we could improve is to make emphasis in the main differences between those similar words, not only by telling those differences, but putting those words in context since the beginning…”  (Journal Entry 4)

“…Next time, I am totally sure, these difficulties are going to be overcome, by trying to take the most important and meaningful activities to guarantee a success in the lesson…” (Journal Entry 4)

Teachers should be open-minded

“…I relate myself as an open-minded person, ready to learn and ready to teach…” (Teaching Metaphor)

“…At the beginning of the first session students were shy. This could be improved by stating a better “hook” in the anticipatory set and relating it to their prior knowledge…” (Journal Entry 1)

“…I have to be aware that instructions were clear and understood by students…” (Journal Entry 1)

“…this second session instructions were clearer than the first session and I tried to be sure my students understood what I needed them to understand…”  (Journal Entry 2)

“…Although there are some things and features to improve as mentioned above, this one was a good attempt, the objectives proposed were achieved and students were involved into the activities proposed…” (Journal Entry 3)

“…As Teacher Researcher I realized the importance on planning on students’ possible facilities or difficulties…” (Journal Entry 4)

Teaching is a long trip full of benefits and difficulties

“…my teaching practice during these years has showed me the benefits and consequences of my experience…” (Teaching Metaphor)

“…I had the opportunity to teach Basic English Courses to university students about to graduate…” (Professional Autobiography)

“…I started thinking about this profession seriously, I liked the way I taught and I liked the comments my students made upon my way of teaching…” (Professional Autobiography)

“…I could realize that one of the main facts in the first intervention was that objectives were not as clearer as I wanted…” (Journal Entry 1)

“…Time was one of the points that affect the development of the whole class. Students did not have enough time to prepare and develop well organized scripts and there was one group missing to perform…” (Journal Entry 2)

“…At the beginning of the third session students were also shy. But in this opportunity, they faced this fact easily and broke the ice quickly…” (Journal Entry 3)

“…This first activity was a little bit confused because there were some similar words and students got frustrated…”  (Journal Entry 4)

Experiences build good professional educators

“…These two important people in my life have marked and shaped the conception I had about teaching and about being one of them…” (Professional Autobiography)

“…The curious thing in this fast advance, was the fact that I did an English Exam to be promoted, I did it and I approved it! J, this was one of my first direct contacts with English…” (Professional Autobiography)

“…Well, I learnt many things from different fields…” (Professional Autobiography)

“…Something that marked my childhood was that my aunty Zonia was an English teacher, in vacations she used to teach all our family some basic knowledge about this interesting language…” (Professional Autobiography)

“…At the beginning I did not want to be a teacher but opportunities were coming one by one and I started to love this profession…” (Professional Autobiography)

“…Teaching is the best way to build human beings, and that is my principal desire and proposal in my life…” (Professional Autobiography)

“…What I have to improve if I teach this lesson in the future is being aware of the time and provide them with an “extra minute” to organize their performances in a proper way…” (Journal Entry 2)

“…This teaching lesson was a really good experience…” (Journal Entry 4)

2.      What sources have you derived those beliefs or assumptions from?

Facing the challenge of being teachers has not been an easy task. During these years of experience, I have the opportunity to explore the teaching and learning world. Based on those experiences, my beliefs and assumptions mentioned above have been growing every time. These beliefs are based on my personal experiences as teacher and what I think I have to improve. Bearing in mind author’s ideas about teaching, learning and other specific fields related to both, I realized the importance of having such assumptions. Nuñez & Tellez, Tomlinson, Oxford, Kumaravadivelu along with professors I have had the opportunity to meet have help me to build my teaching philosophy.

3.      How would you challenge some of those beliefs?

I personally think the process of challenging my assumptions and beliefs is by taking them as a cycle. Bearing in mind Peters’ (1994) Date process model, as cited in Hillier (2005), I try to tackle the situations presented by: first, describing the problem/situation; second, by analyzing the nature of what I described; then, based on literature, if needed, try to theorize and frame the problem with a possible solution and; finally, by acting on the situation to improve or achieve better results.

Based on those ideas, I am sure in the fact that reflecting on our experiences lived in every lesson would contribute not only to the professional educator’s improvement, but to the learners’ environment they belong to.

References

Hillier, Y. (2005). Reflective Teaching in Further and Adult Education. Continuum.