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OPD iV: Essay 2

Future problems in teaching practice

We as secondary school teachers have a lot of things to improve in order to contribute to a better education and of course to students become better and better.

So, for purpose of this essay I will explain in first place, what I think are our challenges in general, I mean, for all English teachers; then I will explain mines and how I think I can become a better teacher.

In first place teachers have a lot of challenges:

·         To educate students: By education I do not mean academic knowledge, I mean values and abilities. Before become English teachers, we are just teachers, so as such, we cannot stay at academic level. We need to teach values, behaviors and abilities to our students. They need to know how to be respectful to other people, how to be perseverant and how do their best for improve their environment and their country. And even if that is not our job as English teachers, it is as teachers in general.

·         To motivate students: We should find the way of motivate our students, in the English learning and in general learning. We must find what are they attracted to and use that stuff to get and keep their attention. But also we must teach them to be motivated not by extern factors, but by their own desires and goals.

·         Develop abilities: Students must learn to use the knowledge they have, not just to memorize concepts. And the only way we can reach that level with our students is by changing the evaluation way because, we must stop evaluating just concepts and reach deeper evaluation levels.

·         Reach a communicative approach: By searching interesting and attractive materials for students, and by making activities that make them get interested in class, teachers must involve students into a communicative environment in order they can learn English in a more real way, just by practicing and working in pairs, and with topics they are interested in, we can make students to get truly interested in the subject, and then they will learn English in a more meaningful way.

·         Teacher vocation: This challenge is one of the most important, because a lot of people do not really want to be a teacher, however it is important that teachers love their job, love what they do, because just when you love something you will do your best for be better at it.

My special challenges as a teacher are:

·         The most important thing I need to get better is in my time, I mean, sometimes I think I am to slow that I cannot finish all the activities I have planned. So I need to learn how to organize my time in a more effective way and to follow every activity such as I have planned it.

·         Another think I need to improve is the level of my voice, but I do not know how I am going to do that, because I need that people listen to me always, this way it is better to catch and keep attention from the class. However I think I have a not enough strong voice because I should talk really loud for students can listen everything.

·         And finally, I am not sure if I need to be better at this, but I think I do. Maybe I must be more strict and serious with students, maybe that way they will not become so loud to fast. However I am not quite sure about that, because I think is better for a teacher to gain our students confidence by making a interesting class and teaching them things they are interested in, that by yelling at them all the time.

At the end of the day teachers have a lot of challenges, but it is important to realize that education and improvement of students in English, history, Spanish, science, and all the subjects do not depend just of teachers, but also of parents and family, and of government, because sometimes it is really hard to  work by ourselves. When teachers are not supported by the other education elements such as students, it is hard that we/they do not feel alone

OPD IV: Essay 1

Skills of the English teacher: Weaknesses and strengths as a teacher

The purpose of this paper is to defend the following proposition: when learning a second language is mostly effective the contextualization of it that the simple use of grammatical tools. To achieve the main purpose of this essay, it is structured as follows: in first place there  will be a brief introduction to the topic; then the body of the paper focus on the explanation of various tools and strategies that facilitate the contextualization of language, and in the explanation of why these strategies facilitate learning a second language, the explanation of the previous strategies is related to the abilities and tasks that the second language teacher must achieve in order to attain a successful learning of the second language; eventually it explains the conclusion of the initial statement.

By way of introduction is necessary to understand that we live in a globalized world in which space and time barriers have been overcome by advances in technology, allowing a greater rapprochement between different populations around the world. One benefit of globalization is the cultural exchange, however to achieve this cultural exchange is still a barrier: the diversity of languages. As a result, it is necessary that the world's youth, specifically the Mexican, be ready to face language the barriers that are submitted, and that rather than seeing them as obstacles, be seen as an opportunity to approach to different ways of thinking and living. If it pursues this objective it is necessary to transform the way of teaching  a foreign language, to pass from a routine experience, isolated and detached, to a fascinating experience to open our doors to other cultures.

 Once understood how necessary it is to transform the teaching mode, we must ask ourselves how will we  achieve it? And how will the new learning strategies generate much more interesting learning?

First it is necessary to rescue that  the Mexican school has a serious problem in the teaching of foreign languages ​​(specifically English), it remains teaching traditionalgrammar. So the first step to solve this problem is to move from a grammar approach to a communicative one.

A very interesting strategy to achieve this is to appeal to the curiosity of students, especially their curiosity about other cultures. That's when teaching a foreign language must become cultural, this means not to focus exclusively on the mastery of the language but also know the other elements found in a culture, such as know the customs, the history, the traditions and even the fashion and youth behaviors that are at the moment. This will  achieved an identification with the foreign culture and hence the interest in learning the language will increase.

To achieve this, it requires the use of attractive materials for the learner, as well as simulation of similar contexts  of the foreign culture to their own culture . An example of such contexts may be situations of travel, tourism, airports and so on. Or any kind of  communicative contexts common to live anywhere, but not within the country itself, but simulated in the foreign country, that is, if we are going to simulate a situation in a restaurant, it must not be simulated within a Mexican context, in the case of teaching English, you can take an British context, Australian or American.

Another strategy recommended is the use of music and games to draw interest to the foreign language.

Another strategy is the use of different forms of expression, not only focus on verbal expression. This means that we, as teachers must use another kind of expressions ways, such as movements, gestures, images, sounds, body language and a lot more, by making this, we teach our students that there are a lot of ways to communicate an idea, and we encourage them to do the same.

Finally, the description of the strategies mentioned seems to be a highly effective proposal to appeal to student interest, it is very likely to be achieved mainly focus their attention on the language. Thus, through the development of different skills the students will learn in a more effective way that  with the simple language learning and use of grammar.  This means that the teacher must develop himself the ability and task of an intercultural learning before he can teach it to his students.