1. What are the challenges you would like to face to become an excellent English language mediator? Mention at least three and discuss a little bit about them.
1) Teachers and research
Since my point of view as languages teacher I consider that research is an important skill we should develop as mediators. It is a useful tool that leads us to the improvement of our practices. One of the problems mentioned in the reading is (is research useful? and if it is, what kind of research should we implement?) I totally agree with that hypothesis, but instead of selecting or classifying just an appropriate one, I would mention that the problem is not to define a researching method but to change the perception of it. As learners and teachers, we are accustomed to perceiving that research is just a requirement for accomplishing a part of our practices and not as a tool that allows us to go beyond in our roles as teachers. So, it is another critical factor that interferes with the improvement in our performance as mediators. In that order of ideas, I would say that at first, the perception of research is the main problem that we face, and after overcoming that, it would be proper to worry about the kind of method we should implement for carrying out research. Thus, if we as teachers can recognize research as a powerful tool aimed to understand, comprehend, prove, deny or create environments, perspectives, methods, approaches for implementing and improving teaching practices, we would be able to implement different methodologies that ensure language learning in nowadays taking into account that we live in a commercial society, “teaching and learning practices from the commercial world with an emphasis on planning, efficiency, communication, staff development....” (Richards 2011).
2) Influence from corporate sector
This influence caught my attention because I have experience working at an institute aimed at teaching languages but, one of the characteristics is that there is a variety of learners. There are people from different ages, professions, contexts and they have different purposes and wants to learn a language. So, in my job I face every day that corporate sector influence because I need to adapt my practices not just to achieve that students learn a language in terms of grammar, speaking, listening, writing and reading, but to shape and foster those learners’ abilities to make them be able to perform their jobs in another language. They do not want to acquire a second language just because they need to master it in all skills, but they need to learn it just because it is a way to improve their abilities to develop other specific skills in a target language. As a result, they will have better job opportunities, better salaries, and of course, a better quality of life.
According with the mention above, it is noticeable that some language aspects can be taken away such as the mastery of 4 skills. It is reduced just to comprehend or decode specific aspects for specific tasks and roles. As well as the cultural aspect is not an important factor for learners as it should be, for the result, another factor that affects language learning appears in their learning process as: They reject the proper use of language because what matters is to decode and interpret and transmit a message. Even if it includes using the Spanish structures, but with English words. At the end of the day, what they want is not to master the language but to be able to use it to a limited range. It includes that practices should be adapted to create specific scenarios that allow students to achieve their goals, making the English teaching in a drill and repetitive experience instead of transforming it into an immersive one, regarding cultural aspects, manners, and a wide range of scenarios that a language includes. Thus, English language learners are conceived as customers that need a specific syllabus design, that is why also institutions are aimed to accomplish different objectives by proposing and adapting learning activities and teaching practices, “Those activities include setting and accomplishing organizational goals, allocating resources to organizational participants, coordinating organizational events, and processes, and setting policies that improve their functioning.” (Visscher 1999).
According to the ideas mentioned before, I consider that if the perspective of English language changed with time, and now it is more flexible when recognizing different types of English, and not just related to an American or British styles, the perspective of learning and teaching it is also changed by itself. Since my point of view, I believe that it is a good way to open mind and rethink our practices in terms of planning, executing, sequencing and assessing because since my personal perspective I used to aim my practices towards the students were able to develop and master their skills without taking into account that they have different purposes, goals, and needs. For that reason, practices’ goals should be flexible, adaptable and consequent to the aimed public, and not something fixed and constant because if it is, practices will not be able to accomplish learners needs, wants and necessities. Flexibility is what transforms and improves the quality of teaching practices, making them enjoyable and significant for learners because they will find a variety of applications for their needs and purposes.
2. Make a list of ideas for mediating pleasant English language learning experiences in the classroom and outside of it. Share this in the discussion forum and interact with your partners about their contributions.
OUTSIDE THE CLASSROOM
- To create the necessity of being in contact with a second language in daily activities, ensure that students learn a language passively.
- To create anxiety of communicating with foreign users to develop communicative skills in real contexts by using real language.
- To change perspectives about the use of social media, or the kind of content they consume day by day on television or internet by raising awareness on learning through those resources.
- To propose activities in which students teach what they learn to their relatives, this proposal may improve and secure their knowledge and at the same time, will strength their relationships at home.
- To make students re discover their culture and manners through the second language by consulting and researching about their hometown history by searching documentaries or other kind of resources made from native speakers, it could work on developing second language skills as well as strengthening cultural dimensions of language.
- To create spaces in which students can interact by playing video games, organizing competitions and sharing whatever they enjoyed as leisure activities but through the second language.
- To raise awareness on students by making them aware that they can practice second language even when they are doing their housecleaning, having meals, taking a shower just by listening to podcasts, news, youtubers, and so on... As much as they have contact with real language much more meaningful would it be their learning experience.
INSIDE THE CLASSROOM
- To set meaningful activities in which students have contact with native speakers taking advantage of social media to build up real usage of language.
- To ensure spaces in which students can communicate their daily experiences in a second language without the worry of being evaluated, but motivated to use language freely.
- To be flexible in terms of what students want to examine or read and select for learning. Imagine that classroom as a cafeteria in which students feel free to select what they want to consume. They just choose what they feel attracted to and enjoy.
- To transform the class into a space in which students can share their contexts, histories, stories and other kind of experiences to their partners, they have a lot of content to share and most of the time, they do it in the mother language and as teachers we restrict it, we should transform it into an excuse for they can use second language.
- To ask students to give feedback on what activities they would like to do, improve or set. Most of the time it is a problem for teachers when thinking about the kind of activities that should be implemented and creativity starts to run out. Learners’ feedback is a great font of meaningful information that is ignored in classrooms.
3. Watch the video "Creativity in the Classroom", which is available at this link: https://youtu.be/oQqFFaJJ8gc, take notes about what you consider the most interesting, socialize them in the discussion forum and interact with your partners regarding their participation.
What is creativity?
According to the video, to me, creativity is the capacity to solve problems by using different perspectives which are proposed after analyzing and understanding the applications, risks and consequences of carrying out different actions lead to have good results. In terms of education, creativity is a very important aspect of teaching and learning processes and it should be implemented by us as teachers as well as in students. Creativity would allow students and teachers to open minds and face challenges by thinking to make something possible by applying different perspectives, but it is also a unique, special way to express and communicate, to see combinations of things as they were not seen before.
Creativity in classrooms
When talking about classes, creativity is related to doing exactly what you think, giving and having opportunities to choice. It is not what you do, but how you do it. Creativity is also when, as teachers, we allow students to come up with many solutions as possible. As teachers, we should develop and enhance creativity competences as the other skills.
Learning at the same time we have fun
One of the challenges we have as teachers as well as students is that we are used to thing that learning should be a strict and boring process, and if we add something fun to it, we tend to believe that fun is not productive. It could be a good strategy that can be implemented in classes, if we teach and learn by having fun we will develop interest on topics, knowledge as well as curiosity and why not, motivation could also increase because concepts and other contents would be acquired with pleasure. So, to have different results, it is necessary to do different things in class. Games and goofing around with purpose. School and learning must not be boring.
Creativity in classes
Classes are the perfect place for setting up environments in which students need to give solutions by using different paths. Teachers should abord creativity as a capacity everyone possesses, that is why students need to be exposed to scenarios and content that allow them to play with ideas, to take risks and to be comfortable with making mistakes. That could be a way to implement creativity in curriculum, because through it, we would be giving students some abilities to improve the world, to have better conditions, to have a better place to live.
There is another key aspect of creativity it enhances to have better results in tests scores, and it is related to the way problems are solved. In our society, we are taught to follow rigorous mechanisms and processes for solving problems, that means that our creativity was not fed at all. We were transformed into “robots” we just followed narrow instructions that is why it is hard to see different aspects of an issue. What we need to change in education is that there is more than just one answer to solve a problem, to face it, to understand it and to tackle it.
On the other hand, it exists a miss conception when talking about creativity. As teachers we tend to think that some students are not creative because they cannot find a solution, or they just struggle with learning. But what really happens is that they were not enough exposed to problem solving. What means that, as teachers we should be worried about developing scenarios for students to increase their lateral thinking. Thus, if we implement more problem-solving situations in class, we also need to make students know that creativity includes time, hard work, sweat because it is a complex process which does not happen by magic trick, this process includes to create, to invent, to discover, and sometimes students do not know how creative they are because they are not exposed to problem solving as much as they would.
Attitude towards creativity
As well as many things we learn, it all starts by following roles, characters, actions, etc. That means that if want to enhance creativity in students, as teachers we need to be the firsts in showing an interest in creativity by giving them different aspects or ways of developing a class, as well as different solutions to their demands. If we are the center that exhales creativity, students will increase their intrinsic motivation and of course, we will stimulate their curiosity.
On the other hand, there is an important factor that we as mediators do not take advantage of most of the time, and it is students’ feedback. They will be free to give us more ideas to apply, improve, change, adapt, or to make content more flexible for them. It will enhance our teaching practices and of course, it will improve classes and make them more enjoyable for them. As well as students’ feedback, we also need to give them feedback considering it is key to students to make them know their strengths and points to improve, and it will lead them to challenge to think for themselves.
Besides showing a goof attitude towards creativity, teachers need to be able to engage students into learning by allowing them to express their perspectives when solving problems, teachers can establish relationships with students to create trust in classroom, students are exposed to environments in which they always make mistakes, so they need to be comfortable when making mistakes and know that the teacher is going to be there for them. Students need to enhance their capacity to apply different strategies to use and not to memorize information. In classes, as mediators we can take advantage of technology, it helps to build up creativity in teachers as well as in students.
Finally, we have talked about the good aspects that creativity would bring if we find out the way of fostering and developing in our practices, but it is known that exist some challenges for makiing creativity a part of curriculum and theses are that, first, creativity is an aspect which should not be covered just by teachers in a class, it should be fostered and enhanced by families at home too as well as the system policies in society and curriculum. It all conforms to a huge part of education.
4-5 Think about your everyday life as a pedagogical mediator and identify and describe a problem or an opportunity to improve your pedagogical practices in English language learning. What new possibilities for teaching come to your mind when you reflect on the suggestions given in the video and the texts?
First, there are a wide range of possibilities for applying in the practices and it is very helpful to my own practices, to be honest, sometimes it is hard to find other teaching practices perspectives to apply in class, just to make them more interesting for students and to keep them attired to the learning process. But, reflecting on my own practices, I could identify some aspects mentioned in the reading and in the video, which I can confirm as effective. On the other hand, I find out new and valuable information to consider in my role as teacher.
I hardly agree with practices need to be attiring to students because those spaces should be enjoyable as much as possible, but I also confirm that it is hard work to maintain them with those characteristics. Along the time, as teacher I used different activities, and approaches to implement in my practices, reflecting on it I felt identified when talking about mis-placed creativity “it leads to activities without goals or purpose” (Jack c Richards) that happened to me at the begining of my teaching practices and I also recognize some of the creative teacher characteristics on me, due to I reflected on my practices because I always have thought that my classes need to be the best each time a student comes to it. What implies to be non-conformist, confident, to take risks, and of course to commit students to succeed their learning goals.
Secondly, I just find out another way of taking advantage of the students’ feedback. What I used to apply in my practices was to ask students to give direct feedback about the activities and the topics they encountered in my classes. So, they directly responded to those aspects of class. But, in the reading I found quite interesting another perspective which was “One way that I help myself remain reflective on my teaching is to regularly ask me learners to scribble on a piece of paper at the end of a morning’s teaching what they remember about the class” S, University teacher, UAE. That made me re-consider getting feedback from students because I am just considering a specific stage of my practices, but there is a lot of valuable information that I have just ignored which I will start to use now in my practices.
I once heard a good piece of advice “imagine the class as a cafeteria in which students can choose what they want” (Anonymous) So, according with it that would be a new possibility for teaching. Students can feel free to select what they want or feel attracted to learn as the same way they would choose food in a cafeteria. Based on their desires, motivations, wants, and so on. Of course, I have implemented it in my practices, and it is really attiring for students because they basically are learning and using structures, vocabulary, and other content as they want, at their own rhythm and they show enjoyment when expressing and sharing what they have studied and applied in the classroom. I need to admit that my current job allows me to implement that teaching practice because the materials and curricular frameworks are well connected to the abilities students need to develop in a second language, and it is complemented in my classes when giving them the opportunity to access at their own pace. Besides, this perspective also facilitates to use and consider students' wants, likes, motivations and points of view. This is crucial because it is a good perspective which allows students to accomplish their objectives and learning purposes.
Conversational clubs or cinemas. Those spaces will ensure students have opportunities to share their ideas based on what they understand and perceive without having in mind a graded activity, just expressing their own concepts and perceptions from an input.
REFERENCES
Richards, J. (2002). 30 Years of TEFL/TESL: A personal ReflectionAbrir este documento utilizando ReadSpeaker docReader . RELC Journal, 33(2). https://www.professorjackrichards.com/wp-content/uploads/30-years-of-TEFL.pdf
Richards, J. (2014). The Changing Face of Language Learning: Learning Beyond the ClassroomAbrir este documento utilizando ReadSpeaker docReader . RELC Journal, 45. https://www.professorjackrichards.com/wp-content/uploads/The-Changing-Face-of-Language-Learning-RELC.pdf
Richards, J. (2013). Creativity in Language TeachingAbrir este documento utilizando ReadSpeaker docReader . Plenary address at University of Hong Kong, 5th June 2013. University of Hong Kong. https://www.professorjackrichards.com/wp-content/uploads/Creativity-in-Language-Teaching.pdf
Tébar, L. (2009). El panorama educativo en la sociedad actual. In Lorenzo, T. B. (Ed), El profesor Mediador del Aprendizaje, pp. 19-54. Magisterio Editorial. https://bibliotecadigital-magisterio-co.bibliotecavirtual.unad.edu.co/node/93941
Martínez, D. L. (2019). Emerging challenges in language teaching and learning. [Objeto_virtual_de_aprendizaje_OVA]. Repositorio Institucional UNAD. https://repository.unad.edu.co/handle/10596/24246
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