Analyzing my role as an English Teacher.
To start with, I have to think about the experiences I have had and still have as an English learner. I believe, - as I said it in the previous post- that the fact of being able to understand the messages in the songs, was a big motivation for me. Also, when I first opened a Facebook account I communicated with people from Asia and I felt good when I undesrtood them. That specific feeling was the reason I continued (and still) learning English. I wish my students (and everyone I have the opportunity to be with) to understand that this language will really make a difference in their lives and will allow them to understand the world outside.
At the very beggining of my English learning acquisition I conceived language and its learning as the mere fact of being able to translate words and knowing their meanings. Now, I see this activity as something more complex because translatins is not the only thing a person has to master when speaking. Other aspects such as knowing when and how to sue the words are also important. I used to think that a person was only "competent" on a second language if he or she was able to read it, speak it and listen to it. Now, I believe that you don't need to do all of that to understand messages as one is constantly learning and some skills develop in a stronger way than the others.
Some beliefs have, of course helped this change. Social and cultural reasons made me consider learning English as something that I have to help others to do. Also, I feel that I need to make people understand that ever little thing you do to improve your learning skills is good and beneficial and one does not need to understand English perfectly to coomunicate and those are tow of the most important reasons that guide my teaching pratice. Every effor my students do in my class has to be recognized as something important.
When it comes to my professional growth I want to make an effort to learn something completely different from English, math. Also, I want to be able to write in a more academic way and in this way do some research and publish. Perhaps dreaming about a PhD is too much, but I would like to give it a try.
Carolina S.
Learning and teaching a foreign language in this country is very complex, especially when you are the one who is in charge of the acquisition of students' knowledge. However, I think that the fact of being a young teacher gives you a huge advantage, and you are studying a master degree, which means, you worried about your students.
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