Ultimo asiggnemnt

Reflect upon the following issues of teaching

history,

were the words how, when and why are

evidenced in your narrative? Explain and

expand.

Wha new understandings emerged from the

reconstruction of your path as a techer with

respect to your teaching practice, yourself as

a teacher, or the context in which you have

studied or worked or the interplay of all of

them.

Personal Narratives of Teaching Experience

A Teaching History exercise.

For many years, it had been a personal understanding that the practice of

teaching showed special importance due to a variety of aspects, being some of the

most significant the job opportunities it brings and the personal image in society

that it involves. These ideas have not only been framed in some teaching

individuals; they are also part of most teachers objectives in our local context. It is

in fact, the way most teachers portray themselves as elements of the community.

Nevertheless, after a coherent and systematic study of professional theories

regarding the use of narratives as elements for reflective teaching inquiry and

development, teachers practice is now seem personally with a different dimension.

It is time for the teaching exercise in our society to be taken seriously and

approached by means of a systematic reflection taking bearing teaching narrative

accounts in mind as powerful elements for educational development. In the

particular case, the process towards professional advance has taken into account

special elements such as personal experiential background for teaching, critical

incidents and events, and reflections of teaching practice that involve action taking.

The process towards professional advance

Personal experiential background for teaching

This particular case has a story that although saturated with anecdotes,

gives an overview of the original factors that conducted teaching vocation. This are

probably, the first steps in the process of showing professional development in the

authors world:

I dedicated part of my childhood to preach from door to door about

the bible, good behaviour, and ancient stories and fables. In the same way, I

gave deeper assistance to people, mostly kids who wanted to know more

about this topic, so I went to visit them once a week to tell them more about

my readings, and to discern about important aspects of life that would make

us better elements for society. Sometimes I had to give public speeches in

front of big audiences about the same topics. During a long decade in the

same activity and due to the good results, I realized I was good at talking to

people, I was teaching them for their future, and I started loving it, but I

wanted more.
My transition between primary school and high school was very interesting for me,

as I found myself in a new world which was a lot more fun and full of information

than the one I lived in primary school. Then, in seventh grade I had a teacher

called Esperanza. She was awesomely beautiful, elegant and knew about

everything. Her English was perfect, her pronunciation was outstanding, and her

knowledge about important factors of Europe and America enlightened me at all

times. She was in my believe my model to follow, she opened my mind to read

English books and to fantasize with the places, language, culture, and the history

of the places she visited. Those elements made my mind towards English

Language and French Language. I became one of the best in high school, and

started helping my classmates who were in need of explanation and private

classes. I also travelled to the U.S.A to visit my family and by sharing experiences

with cousins of my same age I got basic vocabulary and freedom of speech.

When I came to University my mind opened more and more to social facts of life. I

found myself in the position of an agent of change. I felt that it was my duty to help

the country to get a better development, so I started studying something related to

progress and languages (LENI). Linking what I learnt in my university program and

my love for languages I became aware of my duty as a young entrepreneur, so

apart from the business related things I started to teach English at some primary

schools and subsequently the language centre located at Universidad del Tolima. I
love what I do, although I am not perfect, I believe I am doing things well, and I am

getting prepared day by day to be better. Nowadays, I am gathering all those

experiences and joining them with another factor I love: Technology. I truly consider

innovation in all aspects is what me and my country need to be developed and

create a better society, so I always try to persuade my students, colleagues, and

friends on the value of development, being critical and not passive. I know I also

have many mistakes and I am working hard to correct them so I can help others

with my living experiences.

My experience with students coursing English 3 at the B.A in English

Universidad del Tolima related to my research proposal hasn not been vast due to

the nature of the course. That means, I started the course of English 3 last year (B-

2014) and most of my pupils will be this year in English 4 so I do not know how to

deal with the name of my proposal regarding the population to be studied.

However, I believe I have a great idea of what I am going to do in order to reach

the objectives proposed in my work. I also realized that I need to narrow the

objective of my proposal in order for it to be more precise in terms of methodology

and results.

I believe the activities done with my students regarding the object of my

proposal are in certain way the base of what I need to do for obtaining the results

of my research. So far, I have applied activities in which students have the

opportunity to reflect on the DGBL as one of the tools that can be used in their
learning process. My idea with these activities does not in any case involve

inducing my students positively in front of the alternative of learning and enhancing

abilities through DGBL. In contrast, the main objective with the actions that will

and have been taken in the classroom seeks to find the ways DGBL affects

English learning negatively or positively.

It is important to me to find a way to redirect the objectives of my research

proposal towards specific results. At this time, my proposal is a bit too general, it

has many elements for study, and though not impossible, it would be more

practical if I narrow the study and make it more specific. I am sure the instruction I

have been getting along my masters course will give me a deeper understanding of

the ways I can afford that change.

I started the class in a way it would open my students minds. I used a game called

catch a word, a smartphone game [H1] where pupils had to take turns for miming

many words to their classmates in a short period of time. The game was a blast. All

students enjoyed the activity at maximum, although they did not know some of the

words that appeared on the game, so I had to [H2] explain by whispering in their

ears. The only problem I had was the loud noise produced by their yelling in the

classroom, and even when students are always encouraged to discuss and solve

problems in English, they cannot help it and use Spanish[H3] .

I need to apply some strategies to make my students use English in class at all

times. They speak English to me, but when they are talking to each other, they

prefer Spanish. That is becoming a problem for them. Next time I will try and use

gamification in informal oral activities in class. I will find some strategies in order to

give them rewards when I know they speak English at all times.

[H1]Sounds like a very interesting and useful game!

[H2]It happens to me all the time that students do not understand some key words

during certain activities, what I try to do is foresee the words that would come up,

and explain them in previous activities. Of course is difficult to foresee everything

and there are always unknown words.

[H3]You mentioned your students persist on using their mother tongue among

them, why do you think is that

Why do I teach the way I do?

There are many things in my life that have led the path of my teaching style. The

way I teach students has been encouraged and modified throughout time in a
strong link with many factors. One of them is the fact that I started teaching in the

early stages of my life around 23 years ago- when I was part of a religious group

dedicated to preach from door to door. In the second place I felt encouraged to

teach English by one of my teachers in high school my English teacher in seventh

grade- who came every class telling us her experience in England and teaching us

in a fun and motivating way. I sometimes travelled to the US and opened my mind

to new things which helped me like the language more and to tell others of my

experience. Also, my way of teach has been influenced by the social needs I see in

our community as an evolving one towards a better future and at the same time an

innovating one.

My next post will talk about these aspects in deep. I invite you to read it.

Description:

In my second class this week at room 0202, I started by proposing an Android

game called Bomb Taboo. I borrowed an HD Video-beam and proper wires; I

brought my Smartphone with the game installed and all prepared. The video beam

I borrowed for the class did not work as I expected, it did not recognize the image

from the Smartphone; the projection showed a Green screen and nothing else.

After lots of struggle I was not able to make it work. Consequently, I started doing

the game in a manual way with papers and pen, the old style. The students were
asking what was happening at the beginning, they were waiting for a projection.

Instead they had to wait for me to cut papers and do the cards myself. They were

not happy about it. Others did not seem to care. Pupils were talking and using their

cell-phones in the meanwhile.

Analysis:

The idea of the game Bomb Taboo is enhancing vocabulary of students by means

of guessing, miming and repetition as a group. It is a contest game.

This situation led me to a bit of stress, as the activity planned was very important

for me and for students, but it did not go as planned. Perhaps, students minds

were made up to play a game, something fun for them. The pupils and the teacher

felt some frustration because the game could not be accomplish in the digital way.

I wasted a lot of time trying to make the warm activity work.

The activity had to be done manually, but it was not the same and pupils, although

eager to work and participate, were not perceived as being totally engaged by me

and the alternative activity.

Solution:
The solution for this incident is to be prepared with a back up plan. So, video

beams and games are a good option, but in case it they dont work, a second plan

should be applied. My second plan is to have flash cards ready at all times in my

bag. I mean, the paper vesions of games in case of need. That way the warm up

game can continue with no problema and still be able to complete the objectives.

Description:

I had the Didactics IT classroom booked for the class with the students of English

3. My class was prepared. I was about to conduct a class in English where pupils

would use the computers to practice pronunciation, Reading and listening online.

Connection to Internet is not effective at University, pages did not open after lots of

minutes waiting and when they opened they were too slow and not complete.

Anyhow I always try to have an undersleeve trick, like using a video beam, the

board, my pc, etc so I can continue with the class. My students get bored and start

as always chatting on their phones or joking around while they wait for the pages to

open. It has happens manby times. I dont know exactly how to solve this problem.

Analysis:
Technological resources are a big weakness at university, mostly Internet. We have

computers at university, IT classrooms and the like, but the connection to Internet

is so deadly awful and slow that not all the classes can progress in a fluently

technological way. Al classes that have been thought and aimed for using

computers and Internet lose greatness due to this issue. Stress is one of the

consequences for this class. Students and the teacher experiment it. Even when

the activities are changed for alternative ones, students expect more technological

assistance.

Solution:

For solving the problem with the Internet in the class there can be some options.

One of them is to report the incidents to the IT office at university. It will take a long

time, but it also will give the institution the opportunity to know more about what is

happening. Another option is to bring the computer materials saved on the Usb

drives or cds, so the Internet is not dependable anymore. It will be slower and it will

demand more work, but it is a good solution, however, not the best.

I started my class on time. There have been some presentations by students. What

we call microteaching. The idea of this activities is to get students to know the

experience of teaching and talking in front of big groups. They normally talk to each

other, but mostly with their preferred classmate. Another purpose of this activity is
to give pupils the chance to improve their speaking skills on topics related to

curriculum. Something that normally happens is, that students who are attending

the presentations speak too much, and most of the times they speak spanish, even

when they know they should speak English at all times.

Nevertheless, I must bear in mind that this situation is not happening as much as it

had happened before. One reason for this could be that I always take the time to

tell them the importance of taking advantage of their in-class time to improve their

skills, a time most of them do not have outside the class due to natural cultural

reasons. As I said before, some pupils talk too much, I try not to be bothering every

second telling them to be quiet, but the reality is that is becoming more frequent.

Next time this situation occurs, I will give them some talking tasks knowing their

great abilities to communicate at all time. These tasks I have in mind have to do

with helping others understand the topics presented and encouraging less talkative

ones to express themselves more orally.

This time the class was not in charge of students. A proposal has been made by

the Deans office to train pupils for taking the Ielts test with succesful scores.
Students paid individed attention to class instructions. I now understand most of

my pupils in this group are used to follow instructions, to follow commands, so

when they are given the chance to solve situations by themselves or as a group

they tend to get disorganized.

That training class had to do with Writing Task 1 for Ielts Academic test. Students

were told to check different types of graphs, diagrams, charts, and the like in order

for me to know if they had some background knowledge of them and discuss with

their peers. Pupils once again forgot to communicate in English and started using

their mother tongue, so I told them to stop the activity and begun giving them some

advice. My advice for them tended to remind them how significant is for them to

practice their English abilities As it could be imperative for them to show an

excellent command of English for the International test in question. They paid close

attention to all the points that I argumented and started discussing back again in

plain English with no difficulties.

I now understand that for them, connecting their learning to their future

development in terms of test performance and high score is a key factor that helps

them express proper interest in their learning. Spanish was not spoken in class

again that day. I was happy because I am getting to know them and the way to

approach their learning. Not everyone has the same learning styles but the majority

of them work with an example following idea.