My personal reflection on reaching professional goals.
I think I have somehow reached well many of the professional goals presented in the questionnaire. There are some goals in which my development is not very confident, particularly the ones in which theory is onvolved – theory is an aspect in which I need to develop deeper knowledge.
I think my strongest areas in these
professional goals are to analyze and
adapt teaching material and to use
methods and techniques that meet the
context and particular characteristics
of students or groups. I have enough English proficiency, but I know this isn´t enough, so am always
after technique and didactic that go along with our workplace methodology and class
context.
Through this BA in ELT I have become more
and more reflective in most areas. However, I think I need to have
stronger knowledge in theories and to develop
stronger critical thinking towards the conclusions I get from my reflections for that I can take
better decision and solutions about my
professional work.
I think I have not gained
enough theoretical ground to strongly back up my decisions and to support well
some solutions and issues in my work context. Looking at the questionnaire I can
notice that theory has a lot of weight, and I feel weak about this aspect. I am
looking forward to learn deeper about different learning and teaching theories
and principles so I can apply them into my teaching and contrast them. Taking this
BA in ELT has also made me aware of the importance of research. I have been
keeping a journal of my teaching since I started FOLC. I am enthusiastic about learning all about research and its
techniques to carry it out systematically, so I can improve my teaching and my
development as a professional to become a good and useful member to the English
language teaching community and to the educational research field.
Hello Norma, good luck with your plans about research. I'm sure you'll continue being an excellent teacher. Congrats!
ResponderEliminarIt seems that you have a very clear goal for your development as a teacher: to build your knowledge of theory. Perhaps this is something that you can do when planning your classes for SS, and you could report on the results in your blog.
ResponderEliminarHow have you found the experience of keeping a teaching journal? It would be great to hear more about it.
Keeping a teaching journal has been a great start to pursue clearer and more specific goals in improving my teaching.
EliminarWith regards building my knowledge of theory, I kind of feel blocked out. How do I start? Where do I start looking on how I can exactly start cope theory with lesson planning in an effective way? I feel a little lost about it!!1
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ResponderEliminarHi Norma, Incorporating theory into your teaching can only be done if you know about the theory beforehand. You must have covered theories of teaching English as a foreign language and language acquisition in your classes in the BA: use these as a starting point to work on. If you can relate your decisions in your lesson plans to these theories, you are already achieving that goal.
ResponderEliminarAnd to find out more about theory, perhaps the most accessible way is through reading research/academic journals in the field. You don't have to read everything, but looking at the abstracts will be enough to let you know if the article will be interesting to you or not. Attending conferences (e.g. the MEXTESOL conference) is also a great way of learning more about current theories in language teaching.
I really like reading your thoughtful reflection I also feel enthusiastic about reading research journals because in that way I can have the most recent information about ELT.
ResponderEliminarCongratulations :)