Teachers need to be adaptable
Last year I moved back to my hometown and I got a job at a secondary school in September. I was going to stand in for a teacher who was on maternity leave. The school was state-run but the students were grouped according to level, which was a great advantage, since both teachers and students work much better in homogeneous classes than in mixed-ability ones. I had to teach five hours a week, from Tuesday to Friday. My group was made up of 25 students aged 15 and 16 who were at elementary level. The working atmosphere was pleasant; there were no behavior problems so I felt immediately at ease.
The problem began when I started teaching. I had spent nine years working at a bilingual school in Buenos Aires, where the language level was high and English was taught through content. I had to face the challenge of working at a new institution with different goals and levels. What I needed was to adapt to the new working situation. Mohanna, Chambers and Wall (2008) define the “all-round flexible teacher” as follows: “[t]his teacher can use lots of different skills effectively, can teach both peers and juniors, and is very aware of the way that the whole environment affects both teachers and learners” (p. 23).
There were many differences between my teaching experience and the role to fulfill at the new school. To begin with, I was used to carrying my lessons in English the whole time, as my former Coordinator insisted on using the target language; besides, it was not necessary to use the native language as the students understood me perfectly well. In this new setting, in contrast, my students struggled to understand what I was saying, they complained that I spoke too fast and reminded me all time that they were at elementary level. What I found difficult was to change my speaking habits. I found it impossible to bring myself to use Spanish in the classroom. I talked to a former colleague who advised me to be more flexible and to use caretaker speech or our native language if it was necessary. After a year, I have managed to simplify my English so that students do not panic, although some of my students still complain that I speak very fast. The rest have adapted to it.
Another aspect I also found difficult was to lower my expectations. After working so many years with fluent “bilingual” students, I found it hard to deal with speaking production problems. My students were willing to work, their comprehension was good, but their spoken production, in my opinion, was poor. I talked to the Head of Studies, who reminded me that I was teaching the lowest level. Then I realized they just needed more time and practice, and that I needed to set achievable goals- my standards were too high. Therefore, I tried to include more pair-work activities, role-plays and other speaking activities to help them improve their speaking skills.
As Mohanna, Chambers and Wall (2008) pointed out:
Good teachers recognize that learners differ. We all come to learning with different experiences and pre-existing expertise, different levels of motivation and preferred ways of learning. Learners also have an understanding of what teaching and learning is, based on previous instructional experiences and hence they have expectations of their teacher. This will colour how they enter into and respond in a new learning situation. The skill of being a great teacher is in knowing how to respond to learners in ways that effectively address the differences between them and to be able to facilitate learning in a variety of ways that also takes into account differences in subject matter and setting ( p. 1)
I considered that I was an experienced teacher, but I had worked for years at the same school; therefore my experience was relevant up to a point. Being a good teacher involves not only teaching experience but also the ability to adapt to different students and institutions. I needed to be more aware of my working environment and more flexible so as to be successful in a new teaching context.
Mohanna K. , Chambers, R. & Wall, D. (2008). Your teaching Style, a practical guide to understanding, developing and improving. Radcliff Publishing. Retrieved October 2011 from http://www.radcliffe- oxford.com/books/samplechapter/8587/03-YourTeaching-Ch3-4059768rdz.pdf
No comments:
Post a Comment