Practice: Reflective teacher

Practice: Reflective teacher

I would like to share with you my reflections as a teacher from the past few months. It was very active and busy time for me and very effective at the same time.

After hearing of Individual Learner Differences (ILD) there appeared new connections in my brain. It was strange moment of connecting some pieces which were completely separate before.

I suppose all researchers who try to investigate the ILD topic come across many obstacles during the process of research. There are few reasons like factors are inter-dependent, there are multiple ways to define L2 proficiency (written/ oral) and correlation between factors is not always known nor assumed. Probably there are much more impediments. In my world this means that researches can be done but it’s not possible to formulate true statements in this area of research. Even the name speaks for itself, how can we investigate individual issues wider that just by investigate the individual? Obviously, we can settle main and general terms like motivation which can be instrumental or integrative, extrinsic or intrinsic. But my point is, two instrumental motivations can be completely different from each other.

The problem I highlighted in previous paragraph makes me think of myself as an active teacher, a researcher- teacher whose job is not only to check the attendance and teach, but also observe and investigate my students. Every lesson should be treated as an opportunity to get a closer look at the students. After every meeting teacher is able to find out something new about at least one of the students. Just this tiny piece of information can help and make the difference for all the group. For example, if one student misbehaves on a lesson and the teacher notices that it might be caused by too high temperature in the classroom, he can easily change the heating settings and enable the student and all of his colleges to learn. In my opinion it’s highly important part of teacher’s work to take care of student’s needs pertinently to their age and abilities.

Looking back at historical approach towards motivation, which is main factor of the differences between learners, we can name three periods: social psychological (learner’s needs and attitude), cognitive- situated (view the goal, self- efficacy), process- oriented (focus on time). It’s hard to say that one of them or maybe some other is the right one. The most common perspective these days is socio- dynamic. It focuses on direct contact with L2 speakers, cultural interest and milieu. Wondering where this name came from, I perceive the adjective “dynamic” as one to describe the most important idea of looking at language learning.

While observing a lesson with young learners, “dynamic” can be one of the first words to come to mind. Every teacher can legitimate. This age group it’s a challenge to a teacher to get his head around few energetic, full of ideas and movement individuals. Conducting a lesson is more unpredictable in this case than with teenagers or young adults. In my practice I observe 5th and 6th grade and I would put them in the "young learners" group. On one maths lesson there was a boy who left the classroom and came back three times because of three different reasons. The teacher had to be very patient but also dynamic to cover his and other students needs. The other day on the history lesson students got so into topic unrelated to the lesson's topic that they discussed for five minutes until the teacher decided to stop them. That proofs they are still too young to be able to hold back from talking.

There is one more meaning of teaching L2 being “dynamic”. In the historical context, the new perspective is about giving language in present context. Each day brings new topic to talk about, not only with your relatives and friends, but on the news or on the lesson as well. This is one of the biggest advantages of teaching L2 for me. I can use the lesson not only to teach the theory and skills, but also, I can speak to my students about things that are really important because they form young people. If they don’t understand a political affair where someone did something wrong, I have the possibility to explain it and discuss it. What’s more, such activities make people think for themselves. Talking about a fresh, worldwide topic which wasn’t answered a lot yet gives students feeling that they can have different opinion, they can learn each other’s opinion, they can argue with their parents, to make long things short, the message is: your voice and opinion matters. I believe in raising up independent and clever generations able to be independent and reasonable. That may sound posh, it even does for me, still I truly trust it makes sense.