BEING REFLECTIVE INSTRUCTORS.
Being based on my 10 years of teaching experience as a ESL instructor, I believe that we teachers learn along with our students.
During all these years I have understood the importance of being a reflective instructor and diagnosing problems and working on finding out the best solutions for a more efficient teaching. It could be seen as a cycle engaging development,transformation and awareness of my work as a ESL teacher.This certainly shapes my thinking as a teacher referring to:
- Managing and organizing my ESL classes.
- Reflecting and identifying my educational platform.
- Recognizing the diverse range of my students abilities, attitudes, ages, backgrounds and interests.
- Creating the right environment for a real learning based on pupils needs.
This reminds me of a saying : “You as a teacher will find that your students will be teaching you”. (Caine & Caine,1994: 192. Having said so, I would suggest always trying to be enlightened by students feedback for a better response to their needs. One tip that I would give is to ask students after each 5 units to complete a questionnaire regarding the classes they have had, so that the instructors let students know how important their queries, concerns, ideas are and as a result, the teacher is enabled to a clear picture of the learning level and progress. Thus we teachers have the chance to reflect and figure out what is best for that target group and become more aware of their needs in order to alternate the textbook with other complementary exercises to enhance students level.
The aim to bear in mind for us teachers is give learners the impetus to accelerate their progress and motivate them to love the language and therefore find always different ways for beneficial classes.
Good morning, how are you?
My name is Emilio, I am a Spanish boy and I live in a town near to Madrid. I am a very interested person in knowing things so different as the culture, the way of life of the inhabitants of our planet, the fauna, the flora, and the landscapes of all the countries of the world etc. in summary, I am a person that enjoys traveling, learning and respecting people’s diversity from all over the world.
I would love to travel and meet in person all the aspects above mentioned, but unfortunately as this is very expensive and my purchasing power is quite small, so I devised a way to travel with the imagination in every corner of our planet. A few years ago I started a collection of used stamps because through them, you can see pictures about fauna, flora, monuments, landscapes etc. from all the countries. As every day is more and more difficult to get stamps, some years ago I started a new collection in order to get traditional letters addressed to me in which my goal was to get at least 1 letter from each country in the world. This modest goal is feasible to reach in the most part of countries, but unfortunately, it is impossible to achieve in other various territories for several reasons, either because they are very small countries with very few population, either because they are countries at war, either because they are countries with extreme poverty or because for whatever reason the postal system is not functioning properly.
For all this, I would ask you one small favor:
Would you be so kind as to send me a letter by traditional mail from Albania? I understand perfectly that you think that your blog is not the appropriate place to ask this, and even, is very probably that you ignore my letter, but I would call your attention to the difficulty involved in getting a letter from that country, and also I don’t know anyone neither where to write in Albania in order to increase my collection. a letter for me is like a little souvenir, like if I have had visited that territory with my imagination and at same time, the arrival of the letters from a country is a sign of peace and normality and an original way to promote a country in the world. My postal address is the following one:
Emilio Fernandez Esteban
Avenida Juan de la Cierva, 44
28902 Getafe (Madrid)
Spain
If you wish, you can visit my blog http://www.cartasenmibuzon.blogspot.com where you can see the pictures of all the letters that I have received from whole World.
Finally, I would like to thank the attention given to this letter, and whether you can help me or not, I send my best wishes for peace, health and happiness for you, your family and all your dear beings.
Yours Sincerely
Emilio Fernandez