NO NEED TO HIDE

Sometimes we, as teachers, forget that every student come to classes with worries, feelings, opinions and a lot of facts that influence their learning. So, I think that the activity of painting masks is excellent to get to know our students, since the very first day, because through it they can express what they feel in a funny, creative and meaningful way. 

Personally I feel very relaxed and confortable with this activity, and I tried to do something different to the rest. I learnt a lot about myself and i could realise that I hardly ever stop to reflect about myself and the things I need or do, because I am always trying to help others, which makes me happy. 

I will apply this activity with all my groups since the very first week of classes. I am thinking about ask them to paint their mask, and hang them in the wall. I think this idea is great because I will be aware of every student context, help them with their situations if needed, keep control on dropping out of classes and at the same time it will be great to decorate the classroom.

Then, I will do the same activity the very last week of classes and get them to compare their advances, the things they learnt during the course, and how they feel now. 


Finally, I also learn that we may do activities that we may think they are not related to language, but it we seek a mean to link them to a specific skill in the language, we can do it and have a very big variety of exercises to apply in classrooms. 

Happiness is only real when shared

I love to take pictures, so in Eureka Spring I was happy like a pig in mud. It is a wonderful city, full of charming. I really enjoyed it, over all because I could share the experience with my partners, who are becoming like a great family to me. 

When we arrived to the founders hall we spent some time talking about the trip, and I was confused about some people´s opinions because they said that they didnt like the trip, I mean, they liked the place but they didnt like the fact that it wasn´t controlled! In my personal opinion, It was a great idea to have free time to do whatever we wanted to do. But then, I realized that the other people are becoming dependent of the teachers of the workshop! So, that only means one thing: you are doing a great work! (They need you to have fun)

The thing that I enjoyed the most was seeing the motorcyclers in caravans, because it was something that I have never seen before, and it is something that it is usually showed in american movies. So, it is part of American culture.

CHANGES ALWAYS COME FROM THE OUTSIDE

Today I added a new name to my list of people I admire: Dr. Lanier. 

When Dr. Lenier opens her mouth, one knows that great things are about to be said. Since the very first day I listened to her I got amazed, but today it just went to a higher level. She started talking about the cross-cultural communication, which is very important since we are in a country that is different to Mexico in many ways. I got touched by her speech because I have already lived, or have heard about a lot of situations that she was describing.

To place you into context, I will start saying that it was difficult for me to choose what to study in the university, because I have always had the willing to travel, and also knew that I am passionate by teaching. But then, it comes the problem that in Mexico the teachers are not very well paid, and they don´t have too much time to travel. So, I was in a dilemma: Do I have to study for being a teacher even if i can´t travel, or Do i have to study a career that allows me to travel? At the end I decided to be a teacher. Now guess what? It was the best decision I made in my life!

As part of my studies and my professional life I have had a few experiences: I lived in Cozumel, Oaxaca and Monterrey for six months in each one, and as international experiences I lived in France for a year and in England for six Months. But why do I tell you this? For sure it is not to blow my own trumpet! It is because with those experiences I realized that one is never the same once one have studied or lived abroad! And having this in mind I decided to make my thesis about this topic. 

My thesis was entitled "Aculturación de los estudiantes de la licenciatura en idiomas participantes en el programa de movilidad estudiantil", which in English could be "acculturation of the Mexican students who study abroad in exchange programs". The findings were amazing! In few words, it shows that people experiment firstly a cultural shock, then they neglect the target culture, then they start adopting it, and at the end, they adapt it to their mother culture! But in all cases, the students agreed that they only take the good things of the target culture, and when they came back to their places they do what they did in their target culture. Which is amazing, because it means that they start a change in their environment, first with their family and then with the others. So, now you can imagine my excitement of today when I was listening to Dr. Lenier. 

Going further, we (teachers in this program) are about to start a change in our environment (familiar, professional, social) since we are participating in this workshop, and we can only take the good things FROM YOU ALL Cindy, Maggie, Molly, Rochelle, Dr. Lenier, Cindi. You are great models to shape us as teachers.

To end with, I am motivated now to start new researches about culture and how it affects language learning. 

Reaching our goals!

July the 15th 2014

What a great class we had with Cindy today!

One of the purposes of this summer workshop for English teacher is to renew and revive our enthusiasm and energy for teaching English as a foreign language. I have to say that the teachers are reaching it faster than they thought. I mean, it is just the first day of classes and I realize, with Cindy´s class, the importance of applying the backward design model in our classroom.

What I learned, and will never forget is:

“Setting goals is the key to success in EFL classes”. Having defined our goals, we decide what methodology we are going to use to achieve those goals, always having in mind that is the meaningful learning what we are looking for.

Then, I learned that there is not a panacea, an ideal methodology for everything. All teachers are different, as well as the students that we have, so we can vary the methodologies. However we have to take into consideration a set of important things, which we can divide in three stages:

1. Identify desired results.
2.Determine acceptable evidences of learning.
3.Design learning experiences and instruction.

In general aspects, it is all about not getting married with only one thing: as our desired results are going to be always different, our evidences of learning must be different, and in consequence the experiences are not always going to be the same. Then it comes to the stage our capacity to become a reflective teacher. But how can we reach that? Through OBSERVATION.  

I never thought that I was going to learn another language in this course: with Cindy we did, we learnt Croatian! With this little Croatian class we had the chance to put in practice our capacity to learn through observation, and to realize that the most difficult part of it is to leave out our conceptions about teaching, as there is not an ideal way to teach, furthermore something that we don’t have to forget is that we have to be objective when we observe, otherwise it is going to be a simple waste of time.  Also, we must take into account different aspects: the classroom, the teacher, the students and the lesson.

It is difficult to include in this post all the things that we learnt, but I tried not to leave out the most important things.

Hvala!

Carlos Ramos