My final reflection

I must say that this course helped us to consolidate all the knowlege we have acquired these four last years. This subject was the starting point to know and learn the theories that will prompt us to succeed in our future classes, in terms of performing and doing a good class, and this is because our teacheer was always worried about giving us a wide rage of tools to reach our personal goals as teacher inside a classroom.

According to the contents of this subject, I think they were the foundations to help us to realize about the different teaching methonds that we will have to use in a classroom with our students considering each of our students needs, different problems they may have, different skills levels, pace, and different backgrounds.

I must thank our teacher. She was super motivated and dynamic, very patient, undestandable and nice to all of us. Thank you very much indeed!

TKT Reflection: It is impossible in a class for a teacher to know why a students is making a mistake.

I don't agree with this thought. A teacher has been trained during all his/her proffesional training in different areas of education. If he/she has been properly trained, he/she should be able to identify and notice a student's mistake. Those can be grammar mistakes, pronunciation mistakes, to mention some. For instance, if a student makes a grammar mistake it must be the result of little effort on former teachers to correct or support that student.

Knowing our students help us to realize why they are making mistakes and where they come form. Those can also be the result of issues inside his/her family. Communication with the students is the best way to know why they have problems in learning.

TKT Reflection 7: How did age, ways and context in which you learnt English influence your success at learning?

When I was a child, my parents enrolled me in an English Club. It was taught by an Australian couple. They taught us in a way that I considered it was very didactic. Today that I have learnt a bit more about learning strategies and approaches, I realize that it was the same as I’ve been learning the latest years.
They taught us about Australia, its people, their way of life and its culture using pictures, images and different things. I went to the English Club three times a week after going home from school for almost two years and I learnt a lot. And I stopped studying with them because they went back to Australia.

When I finished school, I kept learning English in different institutions. I did not like the way those institutions taught English because I thought they were going to teach like the Australian couple. These new teachers just focused on grammar. Their pronunciation was not good, they were not motivated. I didn’t like it at all and, and I haven’t been able to find the same motivation to improve and fulfill my goals yet. 

TKT Reflection 6: Which method of learning English would you prefer: communicative, form-focused, grammar-translation, or a combination of these? Why?

I think that I would choose a combination of those because different methods and approaches can be helpful and easily apply according to the topic or grammar point I would have to teach. Even though I consider grammar-translation a bit boring, at lower levels it is necessary to give students feedback in their L1, but using it a whole class, or a whole unit, can be also boring and tiring for me, the teacher, as well as the students.

I cannot say at this stage which method of learning I am going to use with my students for sure. I think it will depend on my working experience and also on the level of the students I would teach at a given time. I also consider that I have to keep studying and learning and being updated with the latest trends and ways of teaching Let’s time goes by; only experience and time would tell.

Reflection 5: What is learning English like?

I think that learning any foreign language means more than learning grammar or vocabulary. It also involves knowing the history, ways of life, custom and traditions that belongs to the people who speak that foreign language.

It is also important to be highly motivated towards learning a second language. That motivation can come from the reason why we are learning English, and keep that goal in mind and never let go that reason. But it must come from the person who is teaching that language. If he or she is not motivated, it is going to be a way more difficult o learn it, no matter how important is our aim.
For me, learning English is all about motivation, either from the student or the teacher.

Reflection 4: Observing a class

This is what I’ve observed:
The teacher starts the class telling the students off. It seems that she doesn’t have any knowledge about classroom management. As a result, students simply act as if she isn’t there and they are very disrespectful. They don’t pay attention to her and don’t work in the class.

The teacher tries to teach her students using the grammar-translation method, but no one listens to her. There is no student-teacher interaction or student-student interaction in terms of the topic of the class, just harsh words among them; therefore they really haven’t learnt much this semester.

Teacher’s motivation doesn’t exist and she is always complaining about education, and asking me why I am study pedagogy. But this class helps me and motivates me a lot, because it encourages me to be a
nice and good teacher.

TEACHING PHILOSOPHY

Effective means “achieving the results you want”. An effective second language teacher teaches his students in a proper and organized way which let the students control and acquire what he knows is important for them.

There are many people who think that they can’t learn a second language because they have spent many years studying it at school and they can’t hold a conversation or understand a native speaker. This probably happens because the syllabus is based on a lot of grammar explanations and has little use of the language in oral interactions.

Learning a language needs the students to get in touch with its culture and this can be done by watching videos or movies, reading magazines, newspapers, and websites. Using these sources the students can improve their learning process. To acquire a language, students need to be trained in the four skills any language has: listening, reading, writing, and speaking and also need to be trained in a friendly and kind environment where they can develop self-confidence and where they don’t feel embarrassed.

A second language should be taught by using new methods that facilitate practical processes. The teacher must trigger in the students the need to use the second language in all the activities he does (the use of technology, movies, music, social relations), calling his students attention through topics and things that are interesting for them. In this way, the teacher motivates his students to use the second language.

The main role of the teacher is that the students could notice how useful a second language is in their lives. The teacher will have to use methodologies that allow students to get tools in order to stimulate their independence as learners. A teacher should provide significant experiences in order to allow students to practice what they have learnt so they can build together some grammar structures of the second language.

A POSITIVE ATTITUDE TO THE TARGET LANGUAGE IS ESSENTIAL FOR LEARNING

The fact of having a positive attitude not only make goals to be possible, but reachable.

The feelings the student has towards the teacher will determine his performance in terms of getting a god or bad result in any area of the curricula, “if there are not positive emotions such as love, worrying, sense of humor in the whole learning process, there are not agreement between cognition and affections which makes socialization and creative processes difficult.” (Villarroel, 2005, p.2).

The relationship between learning and emotions begun to be studied in the 70’s, but it hasn’t been taken into account. And eventhough it plays an important part in the learning process, it is not consider when designing methodological and assessment strategies. Most of the time, schools give priority to rational thinking than emotions (Villarroel, 2005).

Autobiography

My name is Claudia Andrea Rojas Zepeda. I was born on the 13^th of November 1981, in Vicuña, a city located in the relaxing and enchanting Elqui Valley (Valle de Elqui) in the region of Coquimbo, Chile.

I did my primary and secondary education in this city. At the age of 18, I decided to continue my educational background and enrolled in Tourism Engineering at Universidad del Mar, in the marvelous city of Viña del Mar, mainly motivated by my desire to work on local tourism in Vicuña. When finished my university studies in 2005, I came back to my hometown to gain professional development at the City Hall of Vicuña, specifically in the Department of Culture and Tourism. In 2006, I enrolled in Business & Managment at Universidad Católica del Norte, a post degree which lasted one year. After that, I came back to Viña del Mar where I worked for two years in a Travel Agency.

I have always been interested in the English language, but learning it has been a huge challenge. Since I was a little girl I was taught the language by native spoken people. Later, when I was at the University, I enrolled at the Chilean-British Institute in Viña del Mar, because I have always wanted to communicate myself in this foreign language in order to reach a complete professional development the field of tourism. This interest got stronger and I decided to enrolled at Universidad de Playa Ancha to study English Pedagogy in 2009, with the unconditional encouragement of my parents, which I still have,  and closed love ones.

In 2010, a new challenge greets my path. I started to work as a teacher for the Department of Tourism at Liceo Técnico María Luisa Bombal in Playa Ancha. Up to date, I carry out two important roles, one as a student, and the other as a teacher, two activities that are time consuming and that also need constant effort and dedication, but at the end they make me feel very pleased.