LEARNING STATEMENT
The key learnings I have experienced
during this month relate to myself, to my students and to my context as a
teacher. I have had the opportunity to
see how the center of the class can be shifted from the teacher (which is where
it has been placed most of the time) to the students (where it should have been
from the start). I have also started to
comprehend that learning should be in the center of the language class so that we
can ask ourselves if learning is really happening or not and how we can promote
learning in our classes.
My experiences during this course diverge
into four different currents. First, I
have had the opportunity to remember what it is like to be a full-time
student. It has been a wonderful
experience to change shoes and let somebody else be responsible for the class
for a while. I have worked hard to keep
up with all the work but it has been worth it.
I have jokingly told my friends that I am a far better learner than I am
a teacher. I think it is true but I am
also aware of the fact that I will very soon have to step back into the shoes I
have chosen to wear all my life. Second,
I have learned a lot during the teaching practice sessions. I have used different frameworks, planned for
activities using different materials and resources from the ones I would use at
home and worked with a very different audience.
It has been exciting, interesting and extremely rewarding to teach and
then receive feedback about my teaching.
Even the way in which we have received feedback has been scaffolded and
carefully planned so that we could feel what it is like to receive constructive
criticism in different ways. I am
looking forward to providing my students back at TEC with better feedback. Third, I have learned a lot from the
trainers, both during workshops and in daily activities. I have felt their passion, dedication and
constant support for our process and I am deeply grateful for the role model they
present to us. Last but not least, I
have learned a lot from the students that come to our classes. I have seen the effort they make to come to
class after a long day of work and sometimes even under the rain. There is so much about them we still don´t
know, so much they could teach us about motivation and about wanting to learn
that a second month with them would still not be enough.
Speaking about the future, there is a lot
of what I have learned here that I want to implement in my classes. I would like to provide better feedback to my
students, I want to plan better “pre” listening and reading activities and to
select the best activities from the materials that are mandatory in the courses
I teach back at TEC. I will try to
remember what it feels like to be in the center of learning because I want my
students to have that sensation too. I
want them to feel seen, valued and appreciated and if they learn some English
too, I will be a very happy teacher.
As for the accomplishment of the course
objectives I have to be honest and say that some of them are still “in
process”. My brain has received so much
information, my mind has been depicted so many images and my heart has felt so
many emotions that I will need some time to digest all this input. When I wrote the first week’s extended
reflection I wrote that “everything happens for a reason” and now I know that
the reason is not me but my students.
