A Superman Teacher or just a Teacher?

A Superman Teacher or just a Teacher?

I can say that my English classes at school were bored.                                   For instance, now thinking as a teacher myself, I remember that my classes did not have a before, during and after the lesson.  My classes were always focused on the same stuff.           I do not remember having like a good transition or an introduction to a really big important topic. The seating arrangement was always the same. We were never in circles or semicircles unless we were going to work in groups.

Sometimes I could evidence some eye-contact, but it was not always the same. The teacher used to sit on the chair and sometimes walking around checking our work. We did not even have classes in English 100%.                       The teacher used to speak like 50% of the class in English and the other 50% in Spanish.  Talking about participation in class, most of the times the teacher used to require the best students in class to participate or to be leaders of the groups while developing workshops or activities.

The teacher’s method was like grammar translation.  Basically, we were assigned to translate some documents from English to Spanish or vice versa.  In that way, I learned lots of vocabulary. The dictionary was a really important tool to be used in and out of class.                Now, what really motivated students (including myself), was when the teacher used to take us to the English laboratory. There, we were assigned a computer per couples (at that time a computer was like the maximum electronic device) in which we used to work in a program the teacher had. It consisted in some exercises which helped us develop our basic skills.                 We had some reading comprehensions there, with some exercises about reading, speaking and listening.  Despite the fact that the classes were not so dynamic or creative, I really liked them from the very beginning. Everything was due to my desire of learning the language to communicate in an appropriate way with others.

I never wanted to be a teacher and I never thought I would become one, but I always knew that I wanted to learn English (integrative motivation - (integrative motivation – Hashi 2001).                                                                                                                                     I had the same teacher during my high school. There was not enough beyond reading, listening, learning new words from the dictionary and translating. The teacher’s commands were always the same. There was never a new environment.  If we did not work in the classroom, we had to work at the lab and so on. 

Thinking about my own situation as a teacher, I can say that according to what I have seen in other teachers, their methodologies, what I know about teaching techniques and methodologies, I feel like a superman - teacher.  I always think about students’ feelings towards my class. I know about the topics I am teaching due to previous reviews on them. I always try to have activities in class which involve real life situations, exercises in which they face with vocabulary they will be most commonly using in their daily lives.  I try to create a nice atmosphere in my classroom. My attitude in class is positive and encouraging. Sometimes, this attitude varies according to the student I am dealing with, because we cannot ignore the fact that there are some students who really do not like any subject at school and whose attitude is always negative towards everything. I am a guide in the classroom, like a counselor, but I have always liked to have them work by their own, in pairs or groups.  All of these in order to create autonomous learners; to let them know that in a real-life situation they will not have a teacher around the corner to ask things to.

Finally, talking about the factors that help effective learning, I think that I show respect to my students and I am authentic.  They know that I can be a nice teacher, who laughs with them and so on, but when it comes to work and getting things done in class, everything serious.

In this moment I am sure about what my mission is, I must be better every day I want to show that I can do the difference with the education system and that is my daily homework, that is what I attempt to do in my classes, I am focus on enhance my English skills, to improve, to give more of myself, it is not easy but I am taking the risk, I am in this adventure trying to learn how to teach in the correct way and I hope to keep trying on it.

Andres Felipe Vanegas Fernandez