Closing

English Teaching Professional Practicum UCSC 2012

Brief description

The following lines will be mainly focused on the various influences I have gotten and all the

things that made me reflect over the practicum period. It includes a reflection of my development

as a teacher, some strategies I have found successful and certain experiences that I think would

improve my practice in my future workplace. Finally, there are some general comments related

to my teaching experience and the influences that had an effect on my philosophy of teaching.

Closing: Influences & Reflection

Considering the student as a social and cultural actor, he played a role in the social and cultural

scenarios, creating global interdependence subject to changes that were made in the

negotiations of this actor with others. Moreover, knowledge and learning were linked to the

teacher's role to the extent that this actor, along with others, defined a scenario of cultural

mediation, also became central role in what Vygotsky called the zone of proximal development,

understood as the potential or the distance between two levels: the current development of

maturity, expressed in the ability to solve problem situations autonomously, and the level of

development set by the ability to resolve them with the help of others. This concept, central to

the theory of mediated learning, acted as strong support to explain the potential of development

and the need for cultural mediation. With this support can be clearly stated that learning was

accompanied by development processes, and the learning context determined its possibility and

quality. The social world within the classroom and the roles played by each of the actors who are

part of their interaction scenario made students generated learning linked to the social and

cultural plot to which mean, value or belong.

From the socioconstructivist perspective are some teaching strategies that were implemented

during my professional practicum where the need to reflect all the time on the importance of the

confrontation between students by valuing the benefits of:

decentering students of unique and self-centered viewpoints;

coordinating regulation of peer interaction;

learning from the experience of others;

and participating in solving problems collectively.

Furthermore, it is well known that teaching strategies that engage and involve students in the

learning process are found at the heart of good teachers’ action. That is why, during my

professional practicum, it was shown that certain strategies actually help students to achieve

success and learn at higher levels. Some of these were:

• Use of prior knowledge:

It was important to exploit students' prior knowledge in order to help themselves to

build new knowledge.

• Use of cooperative learning:

Individual work was important to assess each individual process, but it was also

important to make students work in pairs or groups to strengthen the construction of

knowledge one another.

• Use of feedback:

I usually stimulated student’s learning; relevant role of the teaching process.

• Use of recognition:

Based on the Socratic method, some decisions on some evaluations or everyday

matters of coexistence within the classroom came to a good agreement between

teacher and student and among the students themselves.

• Use of a "modeler" teacher:

Personally I think it was an effective strategy when showing a new concept or skill to

be developed.

• Use of technology:

The use of this was completely limited during class due to the misuse of it by students

themselves. However, out of the pedagogical hours, it was very useful for giving

feedback and answering questions about the course in general by means of a

Facebook group.

I honestly think that I did a good job as both an English teacher and head teacher: firstly I tried to

create an favorable environment in every single class, encourage students to learn a little more

every day and improve their marks from the previous semester through didactic and entertaining

activities in which they could develop their full range of skills, and secondly, as far as possible, I

kept close communication with a lot of my students when I thought they needed someone to

trust their daily problems, tried to solve their problems somehow or at least get them out of the

tense situation in which they were involved with a smile.

Personally I think everything in life influences or affects somehow in our daily lives. This is why

having been at CEIA MASS during my professional practicum had a positive effect on me not only

as a teacher but also as a future educator. In simple words, the practicum made my philosophy of

teaching to be strengthened: I have always believed in the potential that every single student has

inside to learn and I did further in those who were studying at this educational institution. While at

first many of these students did not attach importance to activities or classes in general, during

the process I saw that some of them began to be interested in listening, participating and

learning. If I asked any professor from my university or any other if they think CEIA MASS is an

appropriate school for professional practicum surely the answer would be "NO", yet I think it is

one of those schools where most teacher-students are needed to do professional practicum

simply because there is where a true teacher is really formed, where all the skills of a teacher are

tested, where students need one and where student or teacher quality is not valued.