Professional Development

My Professional Development poster session EUROCALL conference 2016

My teaching philosophy

My idea of starting  a Teacher Diary is largely due to my teaching philosophy. Keeping a record of my teaching can help me improve.  By having it in electronic form enables me to share it with others so feel free to comment.   I must admit that I have learned a lot about good teaching practices by having access to other teachers' websites and teacher journals and I have seen the importance of keeping a record of our work and students' work. I am truly grateful to all of those who have shared their work. 😊

Who I am as a teacher has been influenced by  my personality, my cultural background, my experiences as a student and as a teacher, my pedagogical stance. Certainly, my studies in the field of English language teaching ,further studies in the Educational domain and continuous Professional learning  has shaped my teaching and learning beliefs.  One of the fundamental outcomes of all these, is learning to be a reflective teacher and seeing teaching as a shared practice.  In order to improve as a teacher, I need to reflect on my teaching systematically.

  There are two quotes that summarize my teaching philosophy:

The illiterate of the 21st century will not be those who cannot read and write, but those who cannot learn, unlearn, and relearn.” - Alvin Toffler

"Teachers and students go hand in hand as learners – or they don’t go at all."

(Barth, R., 2001)

"All students can learn" is my strongest belief. My responsibility is to provide a  learning environment that can facilitate learning for all. I need to know my students in terms of their background,abilities,interests, learning styles so that my teaching caters for them.  I use a repertoire of teaching models and I try new things. I always have a quote in mind of one of my students' quotes a good teacher is one who dares.  I took that up. I am not afraid to make mistakes; I learn from them as we all do. Some of the things  I aim at in my lessons:

•  Ss meet the lesson objectives 
• maximize students' interaction time and minimize my talking
• teach with the Zone of Proximal Development in mind
• have high expectation from all students
• involve students in their assessment
• get feedback on the lesson from my students 

Participation in the CyTEA Conference 18-19 November 2017

There is always a challenge and plenty of reflection on my teaching when I give a talk at a conference.  
Big takeaways: 
1. effective Teacher learning practices: coaching, mentoring, critical friends practice, observing classes/sharing classes.
2. effective use of new technologies in teaching and student learning/
What's it for?
Is it worth it?

Participation in the 2nd |International Conference entitled "Literacy and Contemporary Soceity: Spaces, Discourses, Practices" 28-29 November 2017