CONCEPTUALlZING TEACHING ACTS

1. What do you usually do as teacher? With what kind of rationale?

As a reflective and innovative teacher I always act as If I was a learner too. For me it is more than necessary to put ourselves in our students' shoes to know their needs and desires.Undoubtedly it will contribute to engage learners to learn in a more enjoyable an easy way. 

On the contrast, when I was just a teacher student I use to teach separated lessons which were not learner centered. They were only focused on grammar aspects or vocabulary instead of integrating the four language skills. Then, after experiencing different problems and lack motivation from my students I starting to reflect upon the appropriateness of those not sequenced lessons and the implications for learners’ learning process. In a rush for providing them input I was missing the chance to make of the classroom a pleasant environment for them to acquire the language naturally and by applying meaningful and more contextualized activities.

To my relief, an amount of pedagogical features have emerged to describe what a lesson should have. From my teaching experience, I assert on the importance of establishing first the aims or goals of the lesson which are going to focus the purpose of teaching and learning English. Besides, as stated Curtain and Dalberg (2004) (as cited in Shing, 2007) it is necessary to provide learners comprehensible as meaningful input that expand their opportunities to use the language from a communicative and interactive perspective.

2. What is your mind engagement like in  the professional exercise of teaching?

I see myself very commited to my students' significant learning in the sense of looking always for new materials and strategies taht can motivate them to learn in a more meaningful way. Besides, I rely on a humanistic education in which I can take advantages of my students interests and values in order to promote an integral education. By doing this students will be more reflective and sensitive about their potentialities.

 Moreover, to integrate the four language skills through a variety of topics and themes related to other subjects content. As Oxford (2001) (as cited in Shing, 2007) claims, the skills integration “exposes English Language learners to authentic language and challenges them to interact naturally in the language”. Undoubtedly, it enables a meaningful use of the language and involves learners in learning experiences that reflect somehow their real context.

3. How would you characterize your professional, personal and experiential knowledge of teaching ?


Teaching English to any level and population is the most inspiring and worthwhile experience a teacher can live and feel. For teachers, a complex but essential duty to assume when teaching is planning.  However, nowadays it has been considered optional as not all the teachers follow a plan when they developing a class. Sometimes, as Harmer (2012) emphasized, not developing a lesson plan can work or not, but it represents somehow a chance for failure in the learning process and denotes lack of professionalism, indeed. Personally, I totally disagree about it as I consider we as novice teacher need to think and reflect upon what we are going to do in our classes.

From my perspective, I conceive teaching as an ongoing process in which we as teachers learn too, not only form students but also from the circumstances and the problems we face in our dalily practice.In this way, my profesional teaching has been fed by all the theories and methods I have studied and applied throughout my teaching practice. And the personal and experiential knowledge of teaching are derived from the experiences I have lived which have shaped my role and essence as a reflective and transformative intellectual that trascends the educational panorama in order to get improvements for the learners and their processes.

4. How do you see the relationship between theory , research and practice?

There is a strong interrelationships among theory, research and practice because first of all the theory comes from a hyphotesis which is tested through a research process becoming then a theory.We as teachers rely on theory to aplly different strategies to make and learning process more meaningful to students.

Drawing on this idea, I strongly believe on the great impact Research has for my teacher development. It seems to me a creative way to start not only reflection on our educational issues but also to implement actions and solutions that can improve or mitigate those problems. Thus, I feel eager to implement a research process as it will contribute me to shape a clear awareness and qualification of my teachers’ role as to provide me actions and new strategies to have better results in my teaching practice.

5. To what extent is there a cause-effect relationship between teaching and learning?

Undoubtedly,there is a close cause -effect relationship between those constructs as they are part of the cycle of educational process which has to be fed with the practice and experience of student-teacher interaction process. In this way, it is possible to construct knowledge and shape a personal identity as a social and  individual human being.