Who I am as a teacher:

a)   My teaching philosophy: I reckon that the most important thing as a teacher is knowing and understanding students, how they develop and learn. I know that students actively construct and transform their own knowledge based on past experiences and prior learning. I know that students do not all learn in the same way or at the same rate. I believe it is my responsibility as a teacher to be an effective diagnostician of students’ interests, abilities, and prior knowledge. I must then plan learning experiences that will both challenge and allow every student to think and grow.

b)   My beliefs about my teaching: I believe a good teacher has to understand motivation and the effects of peer interactions on learning. I want all my students to achieve at high levels, so I avoid sorting them and setting them up to compete with each other. I know most learning happens through social interaction; therefore, I structure learning so that students productively collaborate and cooperate with each other the vast majority of class time. So, the best way to teach is involving students in the entire process of learning – teaching.

c)   What I learned about teaching speaking skills: Speaking is the ability which involves all the others abilities, I mean, if you want to speak in an average English level, you must understand all about grammar rules, verbal tenses, show a good pronunciation and appropriation of vocabulary and being able to understand what people are saying to you as well (listening) then, I consider this ability may possibly takes more time to be acquire for any English learner. To sum up, as I always say to my students, “Practice makes perfect”.

d)   What I learned about teaching in online environments: It was just amazing, taking advantage of the technology we can interact with people around the world, without boundaries. The online speaking sessions allow the teacher to share different points of view with people from different parts of our beautiful country. However there is something out of our control and it’s the connexion to internet, even more when the weather didn’t help us but in conclusion is an outstanding experience. There are no excuses to not learning English.

e)   My principles about teaching speaking online: Well, let’s just write 5 of them:

1.     Give all the students the opportunity to express their ideas and opinions about the topic we’re working on.

2.    Always encourage them to go beyond of what they already know. Encourage them to get out of their comfort zone in order to learn more.

3.    Bring some games to the speaking session, they will feel really good and they won’t notice they’re learning at the same time.

4.    Change the roles, let them being the teachers is a good activity, they will understand the commitment of this labor and maybe acquire more confidence.

5.    Involving students in some activities they can be in charge of.