Pedagogical Reflection

Pedagogical Reflection

1. Talk about a teacher who influenced you. What characteristics did he/she have?

I had a very good teacher in high school; her name was Paulina, Miss Paulina. She was the one who influenced me on my decision to be an English teacher. I had two years of English with her, two years that were very enriching for me. During that time, I learnt more than I could have learnt in all the past years in primary and secondary school.
The characteristic she had that made me want to love English language were the following:
· She made us (the students) participate a lot during the lessons.
· She used to do dynamic activities for teaching, like to sing songs, make magazines and broachers, puzzles, crosswords, etc.
· She made us read a lot.
· She was very creative.
· She was always encouraging us to learn and to participate.
· She was patient.

2. Why do you want to become a language teacher? And why English?

I want to become a language teacher because I like teaching and I think being specially a “language” one gives me the opportunity to teach more than just the topics given by the “planes y programas” for the schools. In this specific area I can teach culture, share real experiences, communicate feelings, etc. So I think being a language teacher pleased me more than being another kind of teacher like a science one.
Now, why English? The answer is very simple: it is just because I like the language since I was a child, and I like also everything that surrounds it.

3. What experiences and personal strengths do you bring to language teaching?
To language teaching I bring first of all, patience as strength and then the hope that being a young and new teacher will help me to do a good job.
As experiences I bring good and bad ones, these experiences will help me to decide what kind of activities I can do or in what ways I can teach the topics, for example: I have bad memories about translations, so I will try not to do that with my students, on the other hand, I had a very good experience doing activities in groups, something I will like to experiment with my pupils.

4. How do you see yourself in (please talk about your professional life):
· 1 more year: I see myself doing my master at a University abroad.
· 15 more years: I see myself working as an English teacher at a University or Institute.
· 30 more years: I see myself still working at a University or Institute but maybe in another area, like Dean or something similar but still teaching to some levels.

5. What personal and professional characteristics should a teacher of English have? Provide 3 of them.

· Personal characteristics: patient, creativity and enthusiasm.
· Professional characteristics: responsible, be always up to date with the new methodologies on teaching English and persistent.

6. What do you want to accomplish as a student teacher?
As a student I have a lot of things I want to achieve, the first one is to finish my practicum with an excellent grade and with the feeling that I am ready to start teaching, the second one is to successfully finish my thesis, hopefully on November of this present year getting also a good grade. After that, I would like to do my master abroad and keep studying because for me it is very important to be always up to date with the latest technology and methodologies related to teaching.






Deisy Pérez Valderas.