I would like to focus on two ideas which seems to me, make a lot of sense when we look back at our work in the classroom.
Firstly, the twin sins:
1. aimless coverage of content, and
2. isolated activities that are merely engaging while disconnected from intellectual goals in the learners' minds.
There is no doubt that in one moment or another of our careers we have found ourselves just covering content for a number of reasons but not for the correct ones which should be real learning and understanding. I think this happens mostly because teachers work very isolated from each other sometimes, or we not have enough time for reflection after classes or simply the curriculum it is not properly adjusted to the different sociocultural contexts in which we work in.
Of course, since ‘we’ teachers of English do not only commit the sins of covering the contents irrespective of students learning and achievements and teach a repertoire of isolated activities which are not developing critical thinking skills nor autonomy of learning, we tend to commit the sin of thinking that ‘since we are teachers we should not be criticized for our daily praxis, since we studied to be teachers’, and here is where the root of all evil lies, because external and introspective feedback is inevitably necessary to get awareness of our strenghts and weaknesses.
ReplyDeleteHow would I dare asking my students be critical and autonomous if I am not constructively critical enough with myself to start thinking about doing my work as efficiently as possible, without losing sight of my goals, and the students’.
I repeat myself again. It is always good to start thinking about how to expand our own horizons.
Our task as teacher has been bad focused due to the misinterpretation given to the society needs by authorities. They propose certain goals that actually are not feasible in the reality, because there are many factors which do not support their fulfillment such as: resources, teacher training, planning etc, therefore its logical to think that the shift should start from us, although we don’t have any support to do it. The responsibility to create a better society lies on our shoulders; therefore we need to be aware about how to take advantages of the contents in order to make them meaningful and concrete among the students.
ReplyDeleteClaudia,
ReplyDeleteI entirely agree with you when you mention the idea of teachers working isolatedly, which is a real problem in the development of our profession and probably makes it even more dificult for us to create engaging and significant activities for our students. Because in order to introduce big ideas in our lessons we need to encourage the idea of English, as a subject, working hand in hand with the other subjects as a whole, which will help the learners to see the whole thing and really understand the connection between them.