Universidad Gerardo Barrios

Reflection and
systematization of my
teaching practice

Noe Moises Ramirez Castillo
15/06/2014


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2 Reflection and systimatization of my TP Moises Ramirez
Introduction
A teacher must always plan and reflect in what he or she does while teaching, this
essay is all about that, a teachers duty, in this case what I have done in my
teaching practice and the process that took to develop my teaching practice. In this
essay, there are going to be four points that are going to develop, so you can see
my personal reflection about my teaching and all the systematization that it takes
to do a good teaching:
Teaching critical reflection in what I have been through in my TP and in the
course.
Systematization of the Teaching Practice
How am I going apply the e-portfolio approach including the new learning
environment in the ELT?
How to use technology in a school or work place where there is no tech?
The first point that is going to be explain is a reflection about my TP, what things I
faced in the classroom, how I dealt with then and also how I can improve my
teaching by taking a look at how I taught English to my students.
Teaching critical reflection in what I have been through in my TP and in the
course.
Reflection of my TP
When I first came to the classroom I instantly noticed that my students were
already motivated and interested in learning, so I just had to keep that motivation
and to increase it as well. This was not a problem, I mean, lack of motivation. What
I did to increase and maintain that motivation in my students was to tell them the
importance of learning a second language, mostly English, and I also told them
that they are smart people they can learn a second language, even a third if they
have the desire. Once I told them You are already experts in a language and you
did it naturally so what stops you to become an expert in English? Besides this
motivating talkings, I did activities that were not the typical things that traditional
teachers do, I always began my class with a warm-up activity as (Davis, 2009)
emphasizes the importance of motivating students and the importance of doing
activities that provides them an learning environment.
Thinking critically about how I motivated my students I thing I did good
because they were always interested in the class, paying a attention and they had a
lot of fun with the warm up activities, they enjoyed them a lot and I also felt so

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motivated and happy when performing this activities. Even though I think I did a
good job motivating my students, there is always space for improvement, for
example some of the activities, as for the majority of the class were interesting
some students, a 10% were kind of bored maybe they have some problems or the
activity was just boring to them, so here is where I have to find the way to find
activities that motivate all my students the 100% I just have to read more and pay
attention to my students needs.
There were many times in my class where time was not enough to develop
all the activities that were in my lesson plans, I think I must have to be more
conscious about timing activities but even though I skipped some irrelevant
activities due to time I handled this situation not as well as it is supposed to be but
I did it good. Other thing about time was that some of the students distracted the
class from the main topic and obviously that was not planned but now I know that
I must be aware that students sometimes do this and in my opinion is good
because is more profitable that they laugh and talk than if they were quite and
bored. I think I must improve when timing classes and know how to deal with
unplanned situations.
The most important thing a can reflect in TP is how I compare my TP with
my social service, now I know that teaching is not just go in front of students and
randomly talk about things but planning and reading. Teaching goes beyond of
just being in front of a group of people and just speak what first comes to your
mind, teaching is not just that if that could be called teaching. Teaching is
planning, it is also a process that you must take your time to do it and that cannot
be forced, you must investigate and have backup to do your class, by planning you
are able to face any unseen situation, when you are going to teach you must plan
and you must be prepared. This is the mayor reflection I have from my teaching
practice contrasting with my social service; I must plan more and be more
prepared. That is why planning is so important according to (Richards & Farrel,
2011).
Reflection of my course
I am going to be very brief in this point. This course for me is the core of my
professionalism, I mean, I am going to be a teacher and in order to get graduated
as a teacher I need my base and I should say that this subject is my base due to I
have an idea that the best way to learn to do something is doing it. This course
helped me a lot with all the resources, and information about teaching that I need,

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this course leaded to what to do in my TP. I have seen this course as my weapon
(information) to go to war (TP). This information that I read and that the teacher
gave me helped me to know how to teach and reflect in what kind of teacher I
want to become, a good one or a bad one. And I already set my goal to be a good
teacher.
Now having expressed my reflection of my TP and making emphasis in the
importance of planning, here is the systematization and the process that my TP
took to be successful.
Systematization of the Teaching Practice
First of all I investigate on the methods to teach the English language,
(Larsen-Freeman, 2000) tells in her book about the methods that are used to teach
English from which I decided to used direct method, audio-lingual method,
desuggestupedia, the grammar translation method and total physical respond
these methods. After knowing how to teach the English language I had to do a
planning of the course in this case I based my planning and topics on the syllabus
that is on New American Framework (Jone & Goldstein, 2011). And after I
assigned a date for every topic and activities that I was going to do in class. Then I
did the course outline where there are the activities and tasks that the students are
going to do in the class and at home. Now having the topics and the due dates I
just have to do a lesson plan for each topic in which I specified the class, activities
and what the student and teacher were going to do in a specific class.
After this planning the first part of this systematization was, knowing how
to teach, then what to teach, and after when to teach and specify how to teach the
topics. Other important part of this systematization is the evidence of students
learning and the goals and evaluation to assess students and to have the evidence
that was mentioned before. In my TP I did six activities where students were
supposed to be assessed using some rubrics to be accurate. At the end of the course
all this effort that was done by the teacher and the students must end up in a
result, students meaningful learning and teachers experience.
To sum up the main parts of the systematization in TP were:
1- Choosing teaching methodology
2- Design a program with the course topics (based on syllabus)
3- Design a planning with the dates of the topics
4- Decide activities to do with students (outline)

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5- Make a lesson plan for each topic
6- Assess students and collected the results
7- Check if the goals have been achieve
In this next part there is a good question and this question will be answered with
examples and also it has to do with technology and how technology help teacher to
make the teaching process easier
How am I going apply the e-portfolio approach including the new learning
environment in the ELT?
First of all an e-porfolio is a collection of a student's work in electronic
format. You should include a welcome/introduction to your e-portfolio. This is the
first virtual impression that people will have of you (Clemsom University, 2014).
The way that I will apply this electronic resource is to have a more efficiency
collection of the activities that my students do. For example it is easier to collect
students evidence of learning using the web than having all those papers that can
be damaged, lost, and also that it is kind of annoying for a teacher for instance to
look for a student specific activity but with an e-portfolio, searching for specific
information and activities of the students would be easier and also to collect and
update the data is more efficiency. You have access to this source wherever place
have an internet connection, that nowadays the internet is very accessible, almost
everywhere you can go to the web.
One of the most important things with e-porfolios is that as a teacher I must
be updated with the new sources for teaching for example a portfolio it is a very
useful tool that a teacher can use to reflect and have evidence of his job but
imagine that this portfolio, it is more organized, it is easier to find specific
information in it, you can carry it wherever you go just in your phone, this are the
advantages of an e-portfolio and the best part is that you can share it with
everyone that has access to the internet, including your students who can see their
progress and also other teacher can watch your work and if you are lucky this e-
portfolio gives you a lot of opportunities to get a job.
Now, applying this e-porfolio for English Language Teaching is simple, I
just post things that have to do with English in e-porfolio. For example it is a good
way to motivate students with videos, images, and music no matter if the images
are jokes the best way of learning is having fun and at any given moment you will
notice that you learned without realizing that you were learning indeed.

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This nest question is about a true story for many teacher, because here in our
country there are a lot of schools that lack of any technological resource, for
example and it is very sad that even in some schools the classrooms are messed up
and students when is winter have to make an effort as the teacher because they get
wet and sometimes the classes are just suspended due to rain.
How to use technology in a school or work place where there is no tech?
I have faced this problem before, in my social service there was no
technology at all at that school all the classrooms just have the traditional
whiteboard and marker. But this is blessing from a very personal point of view
because there are some places in our country that do not even have schools and
kids have to work due to the lack of schools. So I see the marker and the
whiteboard as very useful resource it is like saying better than nothing. Sticking to
the point, I would bring my own technology to the school, in my TP I bring my
own computer in order to see my lesson plans, I do not print them because
technology is for making things easier and cheaper, because I just bring my
computer and turn it on and watch the lesson plans I have made, I do not mind in
printing and storage those lesson plans in a carpet or something like that, what I
do is just save them in my computer.
The benefits of bringing my own computer to a classroom where there is no
tech are many, for example you look more professional, it makes things easier, if
you have access to the web it is one of the best sources also if you have to work
with CDs the computer can play them you just need speakers, this one more thing
that I do when there is no technology in the classroom, I bring my own speakers to
play a song for example or to play an audio for an specific activity. There
something hard for example if you need to project a movie, obviously you will
need a data show the thing is that not many people have that source and if they do
they are more likely to not share it because it can be damaged very easily and it is
very expensive.
In my case I f I need to project a movie or images and if I know someone
who has data show I would ask him to borrow me his data show and will bring it
to the classroom and do the activity. If there is not technology in the classroom try
to bring your own that is what I would do in such as satiation. Now other thing
that I can do if there is no tech in the classroom is to use the sources that this
classroom or workplace have, for example in our country almost all the classrooms
have a whiteboard and markers so I would use them I teacher must be adaptable,

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and now how to use any source and also be creative for example if I need to show
some images but I am used to use a data show, well I must adapt my class to the
classroom sources, I can draw the pictures in the whiteboard or bring my own
flashcards with the photos of the vocabulary or activity that I will do.
Conclusion
As a conclusion I can say that I must improve a lot and I need to gain more
experience but that will happen through the years, I did not fail in my TP but I
need to improve. Another thing is that I am a teacher now because I am teaching
but I am a student, too, because I am learning how to be a good teacher and that
means that we all are students because life never stops teaching, we learn
something new every day, and everything we knew changes, never stays the same,
so as a teacher I must be updated, be creative and keep breaking traditional
teaching. And I must never forget to plan, being a consumer of knowledge and
treat my students as people and make them productive to our country.















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References
Clemsom University. (2014). Clemsom University. Recovered June 14, 2014, from
Clemsom University:
http://www.clemson.edu/academics/programs/eportfolio/about/
Davis, B. G. (2009). Tools for Teaching. In B. G. Davis, Tools for Teaching (p. 278).
San Francisco: John Wiley & Sons.
Jone, C., & Goldstein, B. (2011). New American Framework. In C. Jone, & B.
Goldstein, New American Framework (pags. 2-4). UK: Santillana Educacin, S.L.
Larsen-Freeman, D. (2000). Techniques and Principles in Language Teaching. In D.
Larsen-Freeman, Techniques and Principles in Language Teaching (pgs. 11, 23, 35, 73,
107). UK: Oxford University Press.
Richards, J. C., & Farrel, T. S. (2011). Practice Teaching: A Reflective Approach. In
Practice Teaching: A Reflective Approach (pg. 56). NY: Cambridge University Press.