Preparing a Teaching Portfolio by Rhina Benitez

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    Preparing, and presenting a Teaching Portfolio- By: Rhina Benitez

    Preparing andRepresenting aTeaching Portfolio Teaching Practice The mediocre teacher tells. The goodteacher explains. The superior teacherdemonstrates. The great teacherinspires William Arthur

    2014

    Rhina Arely BentezElmer Jorge Guardado

    3/3/2014

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    Teaching Portfolio 2

    Introduction:

    This paper contains important information about what a Teaching portfolio is, what it

    contains, the structure, methodology, teaching objectives, responsibilities, and so on. This is the

    beginning of the presentations and preparation of the Teaching Portfolio which is one of the mostimportant instruments that a teacher possesses and needs to perform his or her practice in the

    classroom. Teaching Portfolios are increasingly being used as a means of documenting activity and

    reflection in the area of teaching practice. This contains a set of artifacts that complement the

    teachers instrument. A teaching portfolio is becoming the accepted form in which you are

    expected to demonstrate your commitment to learning and teaching, document your teaching

    responsibilities, practices and expertise, and provide evidence of your performance as a teacher.

    For the preparations and presentation of the portfolio there are things that are important

    to take into account, and the teacher does not have to skip them. But before we go deeper with this,

    there are questions about the whole topic like:

    1. What is a Teaching Portfolio?

    2. What is my self-Evaluation and Reflection?

    3. Why do I need a Teaching Portfolio?

    4. How should I structure my Teaching Portfolio?

    5. What are my Teaching Responsibilities?

    6. What is the Statement of my Teaching Philosophy?

    7. What are my Teaching Methodology, Strategies, and Objectives?

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    1- What is a Teaching Portfolio?

    A teaching portfolio is a coherent set of material that represents your teaching practice

    as related to student learning. Teaching practice in its broadest sense extends beyond theobvious activities that go into teaching a course to include all activities that enrich student

    learning. Teaching portfolios vary considerably depending on their specific purpose, audience,

    institutional context, and individual needs. Your portfolio would likely include a summary of your

    teaching experience and responsibilities, a reflective statement of your teaching philosophy and

    goals, a brief discussion of your teaching methods and strategies, as well as activities undertaken to

    improve teaching, and a statement of goals and plans for the future. (Heireann Ollscoil, 2004)

    A Teaching Portfolio is compound of a set of artifacts that every teach er uses in the

    teaching process, and without this important tool it cannot be possible to develop a good Teaching

    Practice, due to this is really important because it includes all of the things that represent the kind

    of teacher, how prepared he or she is. Portfolios are structured deliberately to highlight particular

    aspects of teaching and learning they are not exhaustive collections of teaching artifacts and

    memorabilia. Ideally, a portfolio describes and documents your approach to teaching by

    combining reflective descriptions with evidence of specific instructional strategies and measures of

    effectiveness in a way that represents your teaching's intellectual substance and complexity.

    How are teaching portfolios useful?

    As a "product" for decisions (evaluative, summative):

    To communicate your teaching to potential employer

    To communicate your teaching to students, colleagues, community

    As a "process" for development (formative, reflective):

    To record your teaching experiences over time

    To provide themes and evidence for your evaluative portfolio

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    Teaching Portfolio 4 What goes into a teaching portfolio?

    Common elements include:

    Overview of teaching experience and responsibilities

    Statement of teaching philosophy

    Description of teaching methods and strategies Discussion of teaching goals: short and long term

    Examples of efforts to improve teaching ( e.g., teaching workshops attended, experiments in

    pedagogy and methodology, observations of others teaching)

    Common appendices

    Course materials ( e.g., syllabi, assignments, activities, handouts, lecture outlines)

    Examples of student work

    Student ratings and written comments from course evaluations

    Peer and supervisor reviews. (Mellanie Kill, 2008)

    Teaching Portfolios are necessary in the Teaching Practice, because as it is said in the

    definition it shows evidences of activities of our teaching performance, and also they have to be

    improved through the time by changing the way of teaching, and it will depend on the necessity of

    the students and the purpose of the faculty. Teaching portfolios help to the teachers to understandbetter what they are doing in the teaching area, it also allows to save background of what We as

    teachers have been doing in certain time and thought that we can see how much we have been

    improving, also, there are clarified our principles, goals, responsibilities, philosophy, and the

    methodology that we use in order to develop a good teaching practice; this is full of useful artifacts

    that we use in the classroom and they help us to follow a better road in the teaching performance.

    The purpose of creating a Teaching Portfolio is not just for documenting papers but also for

    improving teaching through the reflection and analysis.

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    2- What is my self-Evaluation and Reflection about Teaching Practice?

    All too often staff sees the preparation and presentation of a teaching portfolio as only

    being necessary for the purpose of applying for new positions, probation or promotion or in terms

    of applying for teaching grants or awards. A teaching portfolio however can also be seen as

    providing staff with an opportunity to reflect on their own approaches to and philosophies on

    learning and teaching and be used as a tool to undertake some self-evaluation of their own

    teaching practices. (Dr Carolyn Allport, 2005)

    The experience that I had in Teaching helped me to realize how important is to take intoaccount a set of things that as teachers allow us to develop the performance of a good teaching in

    the classroom. Among the things that are necessary to include, and consider during the process of

    Reflection and Self-Evaluation of the Teaching Practice are for example the number of different

    methods used in modifications during the lesson, modify method of providing instruction, modify

    student tasks or assignments, modify grouping arrangement, modify students instructional

    materials, modify learning objectives, modify method of progress monitoring, modify method of

    providing enhancement. (Dr Carolyn Allport, 2005)

    I develop my first teaching experience in Universidad Gerardo Barrios, Usulutn, in

    2013, I can say that the experience helped me to realize how hard is this field, and also to know

    what I was doing good and where I was failing or what I was doing wrong. Self-evaluations and

    reflections are necessary to do in order to improve our way of teaching. One of the aspects is the

    Classroom management, in this part teachers need to know how to control the classroom and for

    doing that there are things involved in it like the right use of methods, techniques, strategies, and

    resources in the classroom, including the way I speak, walk, and use of gestures; the way I was

    doing it in those times is not the same way that I have planned for my new experience; in order to

    manage the classroom there were a lot of activities developed in that time, now it is important to

    look for new activities that help to build a better methodology, and this will lead students to a

    better learning.

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    Another important aspect is the seating arrangement, at the beginning of the course I

    put my students in orderly rows because they were 25, but at the pass of the days there were less

    students, I had only 15 of them, so I decided to put them in horse shoe, and sometimes in circles, so

    they worked better in that way. The seating place is not quite important if the teacher wants to

    catch students attention because in small groups all of them pay attention in any seat that they are,

    but in this case I did not want them to be in the same place all the time, sometimes I feel that they

    needed to move.

    Another aspect is Planning which is one of the most important things in the teaching

    field, and it was hard for me sometimes to prepare a class, I had to think on how should I start,

    how should I develop a lesson, and how should I end the class, it was a hard job; sometimes I had

    to improvise because I did not use any lesson plan, what I just did was to prepared the activities

    for starting a lesson, with warm- up activities to catch students attention , and during the

    development of the lesson I tried to keep the same attention by using fun activities, and at the end

    of the class using wrap-up activities, but I was doing it unconsciously because I was not clear about

    the creation of a lesson plan, I did know about it but I did not do it; I just did things with any

    order, now I know the importance of creating a lesson plan before every class.

    Those things made to reflect on my teaching style, factors on what I was failing, and also

    made me to realize on the things that I need to improve for my new Teaching experience, and I

    expect to put all what I have learned into practice this time. My experience in the teaching area also

    allowed me to learn many things, one of them is that being a teacher is harder than anyone can

    believe; it requires a lot of interest, patience, knowledge, skills, good attitude, and other things that

    are very important to take into account. It is a great challenge for every teacher who is committedto making a positive change in each student, how? By creating good methodologies, strategies, and

    resources; also innovating things in the classroom, so learning English will be interesting for them,

    and it will becomes effective.

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    3- Why do I need a Teaching Portfolio?

    Teaching portfolios are typically used for two purposes, which sometimes overlap:

    (1) As a developmental process for reflecting on and improving ones teaching; and

    (2) As an evaluative product for personnel decisions such as tenure, promotion, or a teaching

    award.

    Whatever function they serve, teaching portfolios have several major benefits:

    They provide different sources of evidence of teaching performance. As teachers, we

    have often relied primarily on student evaluations for feedback about our teaching. Although such

    student reviews contribute important information about teaching performance, they often reflect

    off-the-cuff feelings expressed in just a few moments at one of the final classes of a semester. The

    variety of sources of feedback in a portfolio provides a more comprehensive view of how a teacher

    is handling the diverse responsibilities of teaching. Thus they reflect more of teachings intellectual

    substance and complexity.

    They make teaching more visible through their demonstration of a variety of teaching-related

    activities.

    They place the initiative for reflecting on and evaluating teaching in the hands of staff. It is the

    teacher who explains and documents his or her teaching performance by selecting what goes into

    the portfolio.

    They give the individual an opportunity to think about his or her own teaching to change

    priorities or teaching strategies as needed, and to reflect about future teaching goals. Putting

    together a teaching portfolio in itself often enhances ones teaching performance.

    They offer opportunities for staff to work collaboratively. Teachers often work with othercolleagues or mentors in developing portfolios, thereby opening the door to greater sharing among

    faculty of their views and approaches to teaching.

    As teaching becomes more visible and ideas about it are shared, teaching becomes a more valued

    subject of intellectual and scholarly discussion throughout the institution. (Heireann Ollscoil, 2004)

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    Also, a Teaching Portfolio is a useful tool that can help you to

    Develop, clarify, and reflect on your teaching philosophy, methods, and approaches Present teaching credentials for hiring and promotion in an academic position Document professional development in teaching, Identify areas for improvement, Prepare for the interview process, (Whashinton University in St. Louis, 2013)

    4- How should I structure my Teaching Portfolio?

    The structure of the teaching portfolio might differ significantly depending upon the

    purpose for which you intend to use it. In some circumstances the structure of your portfolio might

    be dictated by institutional policy. You should also structure your portfolio to highlight what you

    consider to be your relative strengths in teaching and learning. . If you have been heavily involved

    in scholarship and research into your teaching and used the results to be innovative in the course

    or curricula design or in the way you prepare materials or deliver your courses you may want to

    emphasize these aspects. If on the other hand, you have a long tradition of teaching with positive

    student feedback this is an aspect you may wish to make prominent. (Dr Carolyn Allport, 2005)

    There is no correct structure for a teaching portfolio, but most of the literature indicates

    that it should at least address the following aspects of your teaching:

    - The philosophy on teaching and learning.

    - Documentation for current teaching practices, self-reflection on current practices and plans

    for future improvement.

    - Evidence of your performance as a teacher.

    This would be the most important aspects that a Teaching Portfolio should include

    because here I can summarize about the purpose of teaching, what I want to achieve, what I

    believe of learning and teaching, and what I have done, my experience as a teacher are reflected in

    this document, describing my teaching style and the approach in which I am focused. There are

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    some other forms to structure a teaching portfolio in which are included other things that are

    important as well, and make the portfolio more complete by adding aspects besides the ones that I

    have mentioned before.

    How exactly you address each of these issues and what weight you assign to each will

    be very much an individual decision. To help you think about how you go about structuring yourteaching portfolio. The institution you teach in might make a difference to the way you compile

    your teaching portfolio. Firstly, institutional policies and procedures in relation to probation,

    promotion and performance management might prescribe the form in which your portfolio

    statement is structured. Secondly, the mission or values of the institution might also influence your

    teaching philosophy and practice.

    In some circumstances, such as applying for promotion, your institution may haverestrictions in terms of the length and content of teaching portfolio statements.

    Some institutions use a standardized pro-forma which staff are expected to follow. Before starting

    to prepare a teaching portfolio statement, you should first check with the particular institution to

    determine their policies and procedures in relation to teaching portfolios. Your teaching portfolio

    should emphasize your own particular philosophy and practice toward teaching, as well as

    demonstrate that you are aware of the institutions goals and objectives in rel ation to teaching and

    learning. Teaching philosophy, teaching practice and the way your teaching is evaluated may well

    vary considerably between disciplines. Check whether your discipline or teaching area has its own

    standards, in addition to those articulated by your institution. (Dr Carolyn Allport, 2005)

    My Teaching Portfolio is structured in a way in which my purpose is reflected in the

    area of a better education, which contains some aspects that are so important to take into account.

    not for the purpose of applying for a job position but focused on show what I want, on what I am

    committed to do, what I want to achieve for the course, and my beliefs about educating, what my

    teaching style is, what I want to change, and inside of this, one of things I would like to change is

    the way in which teachers teach English as a subject instead to teaching it as a Language.

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    Here is another option of how to structure a teaching portfolio, including some other

    aspects that make of this a complete portfolio, which describes important facts that as a teacher

    should do or add in order to have a better understanding of what we are doing in the classroom.

    These are the aspect or contents that it should include:

    Teaching Responsibilities Statement of Teaching Philosophy Teaching Methodology, Strategies, Objectives Description of Course Materials (Syllabi, Handouts, Assignments) Efforts to Improve Teaching

    Conferences/Workshops Attended Curricular Revisions Innovations in Teaching Student Ratings on Diagnostic Questions Products of Teaching (Evidence of Student Learning) Teaching Goals: Short- and Long-Term Appendices (Dr Carolyn Allport, 2005)

    5- What are my Teaching Responsibilities?

    Responsibilities of the teachers are a compliment of the Teaching Portfolio, and one of

    the commitments that each of us have with ourselves and with the students, in order to complete

    the action of teaching, and this gives us a better comprehension of what we should do in order to

    change minds, and behaviors, also to set a communicative environment in and out of the

    classroom. By describing your teaching roles and responsibilities, you provide a context for the

    reader and set the stage for the main points you'll be making about your teaching. (University Of

    Nebraska -Lincoln, 2014)

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    My responsibilities are to effort myself to go further with teaching, to fall in love every

    day with what I am doing because in that way I am going to do better things and my teaching style

    will be improving, and growing better. I have to be motivator and the one who inspire students to

    submit to learn a new language. Also one more responsibility is that I have to be fair with mystudents at the time to evaluate, to be a good listener and a good guide, also to help them to

    improve, and correct them when they are going wrong, to involve them in formulating classroom

    rules, provides easy access to instructional materials, encourages interactions and allows

    conversations about activities or tasks.

    With the students: My responsibilities as a teacher are firstly, to motivate students to

    learn a new language, and to develop linguistic and communicative skills through the use ofmethods and techniques that are focused on the development of this areas of the language, also to

    monitor each activity that the students perform in the classroom, and facilitate the learning process

    by using a good methodology, making use of the principles that represent myself as a good

    teacher. In the classroom, it is important to encourage values in students, and make them to feel

    committed on what they are doing. Is my responsibility to guide them and try that they get a

    meaningful learning. In my previous experience, I realized that there is a large of tasks and

    situations that a teacher should affront, and deal with both the teaching-learning process and the

    change in student behavior as well, but I know is my responsibility as a teacher to make them

    change, make them learn, and make them be a examples for others.

    With classroom performance: My responsibilities with the performance in the classroom are to

    plan before every single class, to prepare a good methodology and innovate each class with new

    activities but always being focused on the communicative approach, making use of the

    technology, also using resources that match well with each lesson. It is important that the studentsfeel comfortable in every class, so I have to be creative, make the topics relevant to students and

    improve things in my teaching style. Also I have to make sure that the methodology that I am

    using works well with the majority of the students, and the way I evaluate has to be different, not

    only by assigning written style exams, but most important to make sure that they are developing

    and improving communicative skills, by using different oral activities.

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    6- What is the Statement of my Teaching Philosophy ?

    Statement of Teaching Philosophy : A statement of teaching philosophy allows you to

    articulate what you believe your role and objectives are as a teacher and what learning objectives

    you set for your students. The statement should highlight how and why you adopt certain

    approaches to teaching to achieve these objectives. Typically your statement of teaching

    philosophy should be a brief statement about your views in relation to your assumptions, attitudes

    and expectations toward your responsibilities and obligations as a teacher and how this impacts on

    your approach to teaching. It should highlight what you believe to be your strengths as a teacher.

    Despite its typical brevity (about 1-2 pages long), this statement is the foundation on

    which the portfolio is built. Your aim here is to answer in some way one main question:

    Why do you do what you do as a teacher? Reflections on this question generally include four

    components, which may be discussed separately or be intertwined in some way (see samples in

    Appendices E and F):

    Your beliefs about how student learning in your field occurs.

    Given those reflections, your beliefs about how you as a teacher can best help students learn. How you put into practice your beliefs about effective teaching and learning. (If you discuss your

    teaching methods in a separate section, such as the one below, you might simply refer to that

    section in your philosophy statement.)

    Your goals for students. (Heireann Ollscoil, 2004)

    My Teaching philosophy is focused on the practice of principles in order to achieve my

    goals of a good Teaching Practice in the classroom because I know the importance of the principlesto make a good and effective development in the learning process of the students. Also my

    teaching philosophy is focused on the development, and improvement of communicative skills

    with the implementation of a methodology that goes right to the needs of the students to learn

    English not as a subject, but as it actually is, a Language. I believe in students capacity of learning,

    and also on the skills that each one possesses and which can be developed through the process of

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    teaching and learning. The importance of practice an active learning, taking into account the

    different intelligences in the classroom, is my primary tool in order to achieve a meaningful

    learning by using methods, strategies, techniques and resources that serve as a way to get my

    objectives and fulfill my responsibilities as a teacher.

    I see the education as the solution for many issues that human beings have to face. Everyday we are learning something new, a teacher does not know everything, even every time we

    realize that we know almost nothing, and when we stop learning is the day we die. It is important

    for me to learn new things every single day, and be a means of learning for others, and have the

    satisfaction of serving as an example and guide to a change in people, because that is what teachers

    do, change! But, we do good changes. The learning process is not easy, but it is something that last

    forever and it is of great value because it serves greatly in every area, and it is even better learning

    a new language which is as if we activate a new sense in our brain and it makes us more sensitive

    to our surroundings.

    Why do I teach? Because as I said before, I want to be an inspiration for students, and I also

    what to share my knowledge and learn from them, it is something that I enjoy a lot. How do I

    teach? I have my own teaching style; what I like the most is to interact with the students and get

    along with them, I put into practice the active learning so I know I will achieve my goals by using

    my methodology which is focused on the development of the communicative skills. What should Iteach? I have done my methodology, and strategies and I have set my objectives, so what I teach is

    what the students need.

    7- What are my Teaching Methodology, Strategies, and Objectives?

    The designing of a good methodology is a great challenge, even though it seems to be

    easy. According to the MINED the English syllabus for high school is focused on the

    Communicative Approach, in which would be developed a combination of different methods

    clearly explained, as such as the role of the teacher and the students in communicative English as a

    Foreign Language class. So for my TP I will include a set of methods that are related on the

    development of the communicative competences, also for implementing the development and

    improvement of the four macro skills. In a class would be good to use interactive methodologies to

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    make the active learning work.

    A methodology as we know is combinations of methods, principles, techniques, and

    strategies used in the classroom, in order to achieve an effective learning. Here are the methods

    that in my opinion, would work very well for the Teaching Practice with students from High

    School. The Community Language learning , using this method the students will learn how to

    use English language communicatively with the help of its respective techniques and the strategies

    that are planned to use in the classroom. Reflection on experience technique is going to be used in

    the classroom where the students can share how they feel by using English language in and out of

    classes, a good strategy can be to share experiences, they write in their notebooks some ideas, and

    then I name students to share with the others their own experience. Another method that I will use

    is the Communicative Language Teaching , this method will be used with the purpose that the

    students still developing communicative competences, due to the requirements of the MINED are

    focused on the communicative approach, this method will be accompanied by a series of

    techniques that will help to develop it in a better way like the application of the role plays , and the

    language games . These techniques are followed by some strategies that allow the methodology

    work effectively, for example, in the role play the students can simulate a conversation pretending

    to be someone else. And in this way they are practicing the language in an effective way if they

    follow the instructions correctly. On the other hand, the use of language games can workeffectively if the strategies are mixed to apply this technique, but always following the same

    purpose of the developing of the communicative competences. (Diane Larsen Freeman, 2008)

    (MINED, 2008)

    -The use of the Audio-lingual Method can be very helpful, because it is focused on

    listening and speaking before than reading and writing; it can be applied by including techniques

    like the repetition drills for starting, and the strategy to put this technique to work would be that Iput a set of words on the white board, so they will repeat them, or I can name someone to read

    words and the other students will repeat word by word. The other can be chain drills, this

    technique works in a more interactive way because they talk to each other, and a good strategy to

    put this in practice would be that I say a sentence for starting and this sentence go student by

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    student following the sequence that link with the one that I said, it could change depending on

    what the students are going to say, but it must to follow a logic order, and in this way they get into

    a good interaction.

    I can Mix Audio-lingual Method with another which I personally think that is one of the

    most used in English classes, it is the Direct Method , I will use this for the fact that I want my

    students to use only the target language, which is English Language; I will try to set an English

    environment from the first class, expecting that it works, so they are going to get into this

    environment easily. The techniques that I will use for this method are for example the

    Conversation practice , in which I will use different strategies in order to make them have a

    conversation, it can be that they make their own conversation or I can give them a made one; they

    can work in couples or trios, and then they will Practice the conversation in front of the other

    classmates, another way that would help to make this work is to make discussions; I assign them a

    topic and they will discuss about, using words that they already know. Also, I think that I can use

    TPR, in some of my classes, this can be mixed with any other method , the strategy to make this

    methodology works would be to make the students use kinesthetic learning, and also the listening

    and oral functions, for example combing repetition drills technique from the Audio-Lingual

    method followed by the use of Commands from TPR method, the students follow the commands,

    and at the same time they repeat it.

    I consider that the students need more practice of the listening and speaking skills, with

    my previous experience I can attest that the students learn better in an active way, practicing more

    speech, so this help them to feel motivated to use the language not only inside the classroom or just

    because the teacher ask them to do it, but also outside of it in an intrinsic way. The set of methods,

    strategies, and techniques that I have mentioned, form the methodology that is going to be used in

    my Teaching Practice, are always focused on the communicative approach which is like a goal forthe course, and as a teacher I expect to reach this goal, and make them to develop communicative

    competences. It is good to mix some methods to make a better teaching style, for example

    Communicative Language Teaching matches very well with the Audio Lingual Method for the fact

    that they share the techniques that work in the same way as the role play technique, and the

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    strategies could change depending on the teachers creativity; and the other methods are mingled

    in the same way, so it becomes into a good methodology, those methods, strategies and techniques

    that are mentioned are the ones that in my personal opinion are more focused on the development

    of communicative competences, so that is why I chose them to create my methodology.

    It would be really good to add IT in the methodology that will be used during the

    Teaching Practice, because it is necessary to innovate, so the teaching style change and the

    students will feel more motivated. There are many different technological sources that can be

    very helpful to include in the methodology like videos, images, records, and so on. Beside this,

    one of the thing that every teacher knows is that students love social networks, most in the case

    of young students, so it would be a great idea to share a class on Facebook or Twitter which are

    the most common social sites, there we can interact, with forums, make discussions about a topic,

    and in this way they are also improving their communicative skills not only in the oral way, but

    also practicing reading and writing. There are also Blogs where I can post documents, and then I

    can make a forum.

    Given that communicative competence is the goal of a language classroom, instruction

    needs to point toward all its components: organizational, pragmatic, strategic, and psychomotor.

    Communicative goals are best achieved by giving due attention to language use and not just usage,

    to fluency and not just accuracy, to authentic language and contexts, and to students eventualneed to apply classroom learning to previously unrehearsed contexts in the real world. (Brown H.

    Douglas, 2000)

    Conclusion:

    To conclude this little part of the teaching portfolio it is important to stress hownecessary is the creation of a single document which allows teachers to make a record of all otherdocuments and artifacts that are necessary and useful in the Teaching Practice, such as what thelesson plans, attendance lists, resources and educational materials, among others, which arehelpful both to demonstrate the Teaching performance to make improvements and opt for a betterworking position, which is something up to the teacher. This kind of documents serves as a mirrorfor every teacher to improve things, and change those that are not quite necessary, here I can seemyself, the way I work and organize things in order to do an effective Teaching Practice. Also thisleads me to reach my goals as a teacher, so I can surely know where I am going, and what I want toachieve, and make an effective learning result in my students.

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    Preparing and presenting a Teaching Portfolio- By: Rhina Benitez

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