Final Reflection

When I first started the major to become an English teacher, my original idea was to share the knowledge and background in the language I had. Deep within myself, I felt an obligation to share the language I was raised with in my childhood and bring the possibility of my students experiencing the language the way I had learned it. Although my original intention and mentality has not changed I feel that during these 4 years I have been at the University I have changed many perspectives and added other beliefs and perspectives I previously didn't have.

There are many positive things a person can take from teaching, personally speaking, teaching can have a tremendous impact in the lives of our students and can shape our students in many different ways. This has become more even during the course of "Fundamentos III" and the documents we have discussed in class. A very positive learning that I have achieved in this course is the meaning of what a teacher should strive towards being and what a teacher should really be. What a teacher should be is being an educator who brings upon himself positive change in his own life and the lives of his/her students. An educator is the one that promotes change and advancement in his/her students in order to bring social justice, equality and make students better members of society. Many teachers nowadays see teaching as a transmitting of knowledge and don't go beyond this, these teachers don't reflect upon their teaching and the impact they will have in their students future lives. Because of this, educators are the perfect example of transformative intellectuals, persons who teach meaningful learning experiences and ones who make their students better human beings.

I believe that educators are just more than the ones who shares their knowledge, he/she is the individual who pledges to look out and make of his students promoters of change in society, an educator doesn't discriminate or has preference for a particular student, what he/she does is to promote the students inner power to make the world a better place. This is the reason I believe that if you can change 1 of your students lives for the better you accomplished something very important in life, this is not saying that we should now try to change all of our students to become better persons. Many of the difficulties teachers have are the dispositions that are established by schools, parents, society and ourselves, this doesn't mean dispositions are bad, this just means that as teachers we must use dispositions to channel them in a way that our students will benefit from them. From previous experiences of watching other teachers/educators there are many aspects or tips you take into your own teaching experience, as my cooperating teacher told me one day "I don't really care about failing a student or not, what I look forward to is to make my students the best possible citizens in society, maybe this way Colombia can become a better place". As the saying goes "A teacher is an educator, a parent, a doctor, psychologist, a supervisor and so on", this basically encloses the importance of an educator as the model for students to follow. 

In conclusion, educators are what all teachers should stride towards becoming and should become the promoters of change in our students lives, there is no better way to achieve positive change in society than teaching in a meaningful way and making of our students better members of society and the world as a whole.

The scavenger hunt was a great opportunity to share different types of ways on how to make class situations meaningful and interesting for our students. Creating the scavenger hunt with my group allowed me to reflect on what would be something meaningful for my fellow classmates to learn, this promoted a collaborate and integrating manner to listen and share different types of a ideas on how to present the scavenger hunt to our classmates. In many ways this allowed us to review what we had seen from the very beginning of the course and what we just recently went over. Meanwhile, the scavenger hunt that we had to solve was somewhat confusing and difficult to resolve, it involved solving quotes of specific authors with on one side of color sheets and quotes from "Education in Finland" on the other side. What made this scavenger hunt very difficult was that one side was all in Spanish and the other side of the sheets was in both Spanish and English, this made the scavenger hunt very difficult to resolve. The solution for this group would have been to just use one side of the color sheets or use some sort of guide to let the classmates know clues on how to solve the scavenger hunt.

Teacher's Disposition Reflection

Regarding the document "Teacher's Disposition" and what we talked about in class about this document, we must consider teaching more than just the typical profession of providing knowledge to our students. As teacher's we must consider the vast amount of factors that go into teaching and being a successful educator's. Educator in essence, should be the standard name given to teachers who possess a disposition to go beyond the teaching of just materials, content and knowledge. Disposition in itself can be seen as the beliefs, values, ethics an Educator has and how he may implement this to better prepare students to become better human beings or citizen. This type of educator sees his/her student as agents in the advancement of society as a whole. In my experience so far as  educator/teacher I have had the experience to ask my cooperating teacher (CT) many times what is the most important aspect in to teaching according to him, he has always stated that the thing he finds most important in his teaching is emphasizing on the person as a means to construct a better society. In one particular case, I asked my CT how many students he had failed the English course and how many would be repeating 10th grade, his answer really surprised me as he explained that for him failing or passing English was not the mayor focus in his teaching; he explained that what he tries to achieve in his classes is the opening or base for students to get interested in the language and that hopefully the way he teaches promotes this, yet the most important part of all teaching should be creating classroom atmospheres where students are able to become productive members of society. The particular part that really interested me was that he stated "because of this I don't understand how teachers fail students in classes such as ethics and religion". Therefore, in my particular case teachers disposition has a lot to do with the beliefs and values we have as educators and how these are implemented to benefits our students inside and outside the classroom.

Freire, Giroux & Kumara Documents

The documents we had to read about Freire, Giroux & Kumaravadivelu reflects on the role the modern teacher should take. The text talks about how teachers should take a more important role in the life of students and their own life as professionals in the field of education. Clearly, the documents want teachers to be more proactive and go beyond just the transfer of knowledge to their students and to go beyond the reflection of their teaching perspectives and practices. Teachers should strive towards becoming transformative intellectuals who go beyond making a difference inside the classroom with their students, these teachers are the ones who attempt to make a difference in the lives of their students and make them into productive citizens for the benefit of the world. A very important aspect I see in these documents is that it brings a message of empowerment to teachers, that teachers can change the world by giving their students a possibility to reflect upon the world they live in and too change the injustice and inequalities that exist in the world through them.

EFL Teaching in a Public School in Medellin

The documents of Liliana Maturana "Teaching English in Times of the National Bilingual Program in some State Schools: Linguistic and Pedagogical Factors" and Jose Vicente Abad's "Pedagogical Factors the Influence EFL Teaching: Some Considerations for Teachers' Professional Development" showcase some major flaws found in teachers in elementary levels who teach English in the public sector in the city of Medellin. Some of these flaws are a lack of teacher preparation in teaching the language and the lack of instruction on giving classes in English by these particular teachers. Teachers in the public school sector are resorting to what they know and improvising many times in accordance to what they know of the language. Hence, students don't appropriately get the level requested by the National Bilingual Program and the standards established by the Ministry of Education are therefore very difficult to achieve. In the texts teachers expressed 5 aspects that make it difficult for these teachers to achieve a successful English level with their students in accordance with the standards established by the Ministry of Education. These were, difficulty with the Communicative Competence, the influence of the Mother Tongue when learning a new language, Interlanguage, Learning Strategies and Teachers Role when learning the language and External & Internal Factors such as motivation, anxiety, background, age etc. 

I think these two text show how difficult it will be for Colombia to achieve the plan established by the Ministry of Education to have Colombia become bilingual in English. These 2 documents show the incoherent politics taken in the public school sector where teachers' who are not licensed to teach the language must teach it to the elementary level students (1st - 5th). Although these teachers try their best to teach what they know, they are not prepared to teach the language appropriately. My belief is that licensed English teachers should be allowed to teach the language from the very early stages of school (kindergarten - 5th grade) to be successful in achieving a Bilingual Nation by 2019. 

La Educacion de la Mujer para Educadora

After analyzing the reading we did for class "La Educación de la Mujer para Educadora" various conclusions came to my mind. The text describes how teachers must go beyond the art of teaching and become much more than that, in essence the ideal teacher should stride towards being an educator. According to the text, an educator is the individual that goes beyond his duty of just teaching the language and being satisfied with that aspect alone. An educator is the individual that prepares him/her self constantly and reflects upon his teaching experiences. As educators is important to consider what is thought in the academy but to also have a personal vision of what and how we teach, it's important to consider what we are thought in the academy but not to over rely on it. As educators we must show a progressive way of acting and teaching in our daily classes and lives.

A personal advice I took from this reading is that teachers should also take the best of what women, nurturing and caring individuals. We should also take into consideration the calculating and precise aspect men have and combine them to become a better educator. As educators of the future leaders of Colombia, we must become reflective and empower ourselves to improve and become better day after day. Lets be more proactive and innovating in our teaching practices and provide a brighter future for our future generations.