UNIVERSIDAD CATÓLICA DE LA SANTÍSIMA CONCEPCIÓN

FACULTAD DE EDUCACION

PEDAGOGIA EN INGLES

Professional development

“Reaction Paper”

English Methodology II

Mg Roxana Correa

Student: Makarena Sánchez C

Concepción, November 19th 2013.

Reaction paper

Summary

Brown (2001), stated that teachers once they finish their degree, they should

encourage themselves the idea of continuing their professional development, and keep up

with the latest innovation. For that reason he defined eight different goals, which contribute

to do a more favorable job of teaching. The first idea pointed out was to follow the rules of

peak performers, such as set realistic goals, set priorities, take risks, and practice principles

of stress management.

The second idea is related to the features that a good language teacher needs to

develop, for example, professional citizenship, cultural adaptability etc. Another topic into

discussion was classroom observation, mainly because once teachers get into a teaching

routine, it is complicated for them to take the time and to asses one another. The fourth idea

was connected to classroom research; many academics think that it would be more suitable

to leave that job to a researcher, who is more efficient for that area. The following idea

talked about teaching collaboration, which requires the help of other, in order to develop

professional competence, which includes four ways of learning, for example from teacher

to teacher, named peer-coaching etc. Consequently, critical pedagogy is also a suggestion

that learners should think for themselves openly. Finally, agent for change emphasizes the

need to make changes in today’s world.

As Pettis (2002) established, it is the teacher’s role to promote student’s

communicative competence, which means that if the goal of a teacher is to ensure

communicative competence, then it correspond to them guarantee that they have the

necessary principles, knowledge and skills to accomplish it, these three requirements are

linked in the professionally competent teacher. Another item to take into consideration was

the contradiction between teaching only speaking or grammar items, due to the fact that

there are few professors who claimed that speaking is inadequate preparation to teach

English, while other rely particularly on grammar, if so then those teachers must be expert

to do it.

Additionally, she also referred to novel teachers, and experienced teachers; the

difference lies in that a novice teacher is concern with what to teach, whilst experienced

teachers want to know how to teach. The last topic Ur (2002) mentioned is related to the

personal commitment to professional development, making emphasis that it is our

professional duty to become updated, to look for opportunities, and to be competent of the

demands nowadays.

As mentioned by Taylor (2002), it is important to take into consideration that a

teacher never stops learning, and for that reason it should be relevant to apply some kind of

research, she basically emphasized the importance of doing research when teaching.

Nonetheless, the author also suggested that the first question that a teacher has to make

himself is, whether what he has been wondering about, does it really matter? So at the end,

it leads teachers to get to know more about his students, to meet with new challenges as

well as to make improvements in certain area, depending on what they want to discover.

In order to do a research, it is needed to think in certain aspects, and to follow some

steps, such as if the researcher would need to collaborate with other, with a group work or

do it by himself, if his topic has been taken by other authors, by taking this decision the

next move will be how to start his investigation, where to focus, how to collect the

information, who are going to be the participants, and to determine some expected results.

All those levels are significant so as to propose new findings.

The term “professional” was discussed by Ur (2002), who suggested that the

definition has been broadly used, so it would be pertinent to establish the term under some

restrictions. However, the definition is quite different in contrast with other concepts. In its

more deep analyzes, somebody who is a professional must present all the skills, knowledge,

and conventions in comparison to the lay population, who do not have it. Another concept

was the distinction between the professional and the amateur, who the difference is

primarily focused on their performance on the field, a professional prepares himself to do a

competent job, the amateur does it only for entertaining or simply love of it.

The other two concepts were professional versus technician, and professional versus

academic. The first one, it is focused on their skill, that means that a technician tend to

develop his skills through experience, while a professional need both to acquire the skills

and to be able to take courses of action. For the last two concepts, these differ between one

another, because a professional is an agent of real-world change, meanwhile an academic is

an agent in order to improve his personal way of thinking.

The research done by Hayes (2000), analyzed the deficit of cascade model of

teacher development. For the same purpose, different strategies were applied in order to

introduce innovation to the problem, and to improve the quality of teaching English. One of

the advantages of implementing this new innovation is that, it does not require long periods

out of service. The process will depend strictly on how engaged the teachers are with the

project.

Evaluation

Nowadays, most people agree that teachers need to implement new ways of

teaching, according to the student’s need, to be updated bringing up new ideas and so on.

However, it would be important to take into account that teachers also need to prove

themselves about what they are capable of, and to set both their goals and purposes. I agree

with Brown (2001), who suggested that as peak performers we should follow, or at least

keep in mind a few rules, such as set realistic goals, because knowing which are your

weaknesses as well as your strengths allow to boost the best of us, and also to accept new

challenges; this year I was supposed to apply for a scholarship in U.K, so I set up the

TOEFL IBT test; nonetheless, at that time, I did not know for sure that reading was my

weakness, I knew that speaking ability was my advantage, for that reason I did not reach

the necessary points. Consequently, following with the second rule, we teachers have to set

priorities, in my case if the TOEFL did not work, there must be something else I could

apply to, for example British Council or Amity program. It is important to think of what is

most relevant and in this moment I consider that being exposed to real English in a foreign

country is an excellent opportunity, I also take into account that it is a risk, for being away

of my family for months or get totally independency, but we need to take that risk, because

in the end it would turn into an experience that will teach a lot. As an in-service teacher,

and what I saw in high school is the fact that teachers must necessarily apply a few

principles for classroom management, sometimes it gets really frustrating to deal with long

hours of work, the students’ behavior, and also the constantly pressure of parent’s demands,

in order to success in classroom, but as it was previously said, teacher may request put in

practice some priorities, to put certain limitations, and to know what I am capable of to do

as a human being.

According to the list that Allen in Brown (1980) proposed for a good language

teacher, it covers all the characteristics a good language teacher should have, ideally.

Unfortunately, in the reality the facts are quite different, one of the items I consider less

accomplish by teacher is related to be competent prepared as a TESL; mainly because the

majority of teachers does not take full responsibility of what being a teacher really means,

most of teachers once they got their degree do not decide on continue their study, or to be

updated; moreover, there is also a lack of professional citizenship, that is to say there is not

a duty beyond the society or with the students. That is why I believe that teachers should be

able to, as well as we expect good results from our students, then we should also provide

good sources for them. Following the previous idea, Brown mentioned that all the features

divided in four aspects for a good language teaching. I could say that the one I have

developed the most during my practicum at school is interpersonal skills, since I have dealt

with different levels, and all of them are different, students think, act, study in different

ways. However, I still need to improve my pedagogical skills, how to apply strategies, how

to make the class more efficient and how to execute lesson plans, but I know is just a matter

of practice. The other two aspects technical knowledge and personal qualities, I have been

developing since I started in the university and some of them before that, I rather be

organized as much as possible to manage the time and to set new goals.

Another issue that occurs among teachers is the lack of classroom observation with

other colleagues. Once teachers get into the same routine at school, it is complicated to find

time to assess and see other teachers. I believe that as well as we receive feedback from our

teachers at university, we should not lose the same chance to receive opinions from other

teacher’s perspective, in this way we will be able to enhance our teaching methods, and will

cause an enriching experience for both the observer and teacher. As far as education is

concerned, we could infer that experts are the most suitable when it comes to do research.

However, we are the educators; we are the ones who know about it. From all the

alternatives that Brown added for the process of professional developing, I would suggest

to put in practice team-teaching or action-research, every time that I have to work with

classmates, I think about the time we got and the quality of the work we have to provide, so

a useful tool for this kind of assignment is to divide responsibilities within the group, and at

the end we all give corrections if it is needed. I also choose action-research, because it

demands a deep research in a certain area, and to collaborate with other co-worker, for

example, during this semester with my group, we have been working on our thesis, our

research as we have seen so far will take a lot of work, but it is not impossible. Finally, I

believe that we have to give our students opportunities, to make them think for themselves,

but more importantly to trust in them as they rely on us.

Accordingly, the concept of action-research was mentioned by Taylor and Brown,

both agreed that classroom-research is more valuable when the researcher is the teacher,

because he is the one who knows about the area, even though researching requires statistic

and number, there can be a researcher as a helper. Whenever I am at school for my

practicum and I talk to my in-class teacher, we always come up with ideas for the students,

unfortunately, some of those ideas do not depend on us, but at least we are aware of the

deficiencies that students or event the school demand.

However, research is not only about what I want to know. There are other factors

that contribute to it, and one of them is deciding if I want to work alone or in collaboration

with peers, for this aspect it would be better to analyze how you work best. In my opinion,

collaborative work works best for me, because there might an item which I am not good at,

so someone else could be in charge of that part, at the end it turns into more practical task.

What is more, I need to be sure if my topic has not been already published by somebody, if

that is the case, I think that the theme should not be changed at all, on the contrary I can

adapt it, for example, If I decided to talk about the advantages of bilingualism, and it has

been already talked before, then I can become interested about the advantages of

bilingualism particularly in task-switching, so at the end I keep talking about the same

topic, specifically on an area. One detail I disagree on is the fact that Brown stated that

classroom-research is not carry out for a thesis or for a journal. If I take into account the

earlier example, I think it can be apply to a classroom-research, for instance if I want to

analyze how bilinguals perform in task-switching, I will need to evaluate a bilingual school

versus a private school with the same level of English, it would be possible to do it, and of

course it would contribute to my own understanding of the teaching-learning process.

Pettis (2002) referred to principles, knowledge, and skills as mechanisms of

promoting the development of the students’ communicative competence. If one of these

three items is missing, then a teacher could not become into a professional competent

teacher. Indeed, I admit that those three characteristic need to work along. On one hand,

we need to provide the skills, to manage a class and provide effective material, which is

also mentioned by Brown (2001) who named pedagogical skills that are based on the

strategies implemented in a classroom. On the other hand, we also have to demonstrate ad

put into practice our knowledge.

However, there is an interesting idea in which I disagree. There is a contradiction on

whether English should be taught by developing speaking abilities, rather than grammar

features. From my perspective and what I have learned, I think that both abilities should be

acquired by the students. Since I started practicum, my teachers always have told me that

we need to encourage students to work under the communicative approach, and to make

them speak as much as we can. Nevertheless, at the different school I have attended, I

realized that teachers tend to apply grammar activities in all times. Most of my in-class

teachers have said that there is not enough time to do speaking activities; they do not

believe that their students would do it, among other opinions. First of all, as teachers we

need to trust in our students and their capacities, we have to provide them opportunities to

use the language, and finally to make them develop productive skills, there are going to be

context in which somebody will need to speak in front of people, as well as he will need to

write an important document.

Pettis (2002) also alluded about the different needs that a novice teacher and

experienced teacher have. It is supposed that novice teachers are concern about what to

teach, while experienced teachers are focused on how to teach. Although I am a student,

every time that I have to create an activity, that I have to prepare my lesson plan for my

microteaching, I have to cope with the question how I will do it? And I am not an

experienced teacher. Once more there is a disagreement between both concepts. Last but

not least, it is our commitment to worry about our professional development, just as Brown

(2001) claimed about it. Since I started my major, I have attended different conferences,

seminars; I have checked different textbooks that can be useful for me. We need to do what

everything it is in our hands, at least that is my personal plan.

I recognize that it is important to have a clear thought about what being a

professional really means, sometimes concepts are bad manipulated; besides, someone

might be called professional by the simple fact that he or she is skillful with some degree of

experience, but it is not appropriate. The definition for professionalism provided by Ur

(2002) and Pettis (20002) agreed in three terms previously mentioned, a professional must

integrate the skills, the knowledge and the principles to be consider a qualified professional.

This assumption of professionalism was contrasted with other notions.

In first place, Ur (2002) proposed the difference between a professional against lay

person, amateur, technician and academic. The ones which personally I choose, because I

have experienced them are amateur, technician and academic. The amateur as the definition

explains, does things for love, which makes me remember when I started to loving English

because of the songs and the movies that I still listen to, but I also consider myself as an

amateur, when I was in high school I used to do tutorials for the ones who have trouble

learning English, and I loved to teach them, mainly because I used to speak a lot in English.

The second classification belongs to technician, which is also linked to what Pettis (2002)

said, a technician is only skillful in a few aspects; instead a professional needs to be

developed in all areas of expertise. Finally, there is a controversy between professional and

academic. However, for what I have noticed and understood during this year, a professional

would be the agent of change, in order to improve an element of his concern, for example,

teachers at school, whereas an academic does things in order to boost his thinking by

finding more information based on his matter, as an example a teacher who wants to do a

research of a particular area, to obtain a master degree.

Furthermore, I certainly agree with Ur (2002), I as an undergraduate student, I am a

professional, I belong to a community that is seeking for learning, during this semester I

have seen how teacher are implementing new test in order to know our level of English, so

that is to say that we are committed as long as we take full responsibility of our job. I

communicate ideas, in order to improve my methods. I never stop learning. I get

independency in my own classroom and I am responsible for disciplining the future

generations.

The investigation made by Hayes (2000), discussed the alternative of introducing

innovations to the cascade model effect. Therefore, as personal reflection, I do not assure

the benefits that a cascade model could provide, because the information changes as it goes

down, so the idea is that the information will be trustworthy, and to reach the main goal

which is to make progress about the quality of English, even though somebody can seen

this new methods as a threats, but it is necessary. However, I consider remarkable the idea

of implementing new ideas, because as Brown (2001) stated, we as teacher are agents of

change, and the only question that matter is where and how do I need to make the change?

Furthermore, there is always a risk on whether it will work or not, but it is worthy to make

the effort.

References.

Allen, Harold. B. (1980). What is means to be a professional in TESOL. Lecture presented

at the conference of TEXTESOL, April.

Brown, H. D. (2001). Teaching by principles: An interactive approach to language

pedagogy (2nd ed.). Pearson Education.

Hayes, D. (2000). Cascade training and teachers' professional development. ELT

journal, 54(2), 135-145.

Pettis, J. (2002). Developing our professional competence: Some reflections.

Methodology in language teaching: An anthology of current practice, 393-

396.

Taylor, E. (2002). Research in your own Classroom. Methodology in language teaching,

397-403.

Ur, P. (2002). The English teacher as professional. Methodology in language teaching:

an anthology of current practice, 388.