Appendix Six

APPENDIX SECTION SIX

“PROFESSIONAL GOALS AND DISPOSITIONS”

1.      PERSONAL GOALS

2.      FINAL REFLECTION

Personal Goals

The achievement of a goal gives way to the setting of more ambitious goals for the years to come.  After having completed the master program, I have some short and long term goals in mind.  My goals aim to bring together theory and practice by serving students in the classroom and sharing my knowledge and experiences with in service and pre service teachers and anyone interested in the improvement of education.

My short term goal is to work with struggling and unmotivated middle or high school students.  Struggling students is a big issue in Ecuadorian context and there are no many educators who have the desire to make a change in their lives. From my own experience I can say that for one reason or another most teachers included me in the past gave up easily and failed to exploit students’ potentialities.  All the learning I have gained throughout the Master program, my personal experiences and my observations at Bergman Elementary school in USA have made me think of the great responsibility teachers hold in our hands.  Now I feel more equipped and above all have the desire to make a difference in students’ lives.  Although there will be challenges and limitations to overcome, I will keep optimistic by believing in my students, colleagues and authorities.  One of the principles of my teaching philosophy is to have great expectations.  I want to believe in my students and help them believe in themselves.

            My long term goals are related with contributing to the improvement of the quality of education in Ecuadorian schools.  To do so, I plan to be part of a college of education faculty.  It is my belief that preparing new generations of teachers who understand their mission is critical to improve education.  Teachers have to understand that our profession requires us to involve our hearts and minds in our daily activities to succeed.  As a college professor, I want to awaken pre service teachers’ the desire of constantly learn, be efficacious, and care about students.  I consider that one of the problems regarding EFL teachers in Ecuador has been the lack of self-confidence when using the language.  I feel well prepared to instruct them on language skills as well as on the design of engaging lessons.  I would like to be a language or methods professor. 

          Throughout this year of reflection I realized that during my fourteen years of teaching, I have had so many valuable experiences that have helped me to deal with certain difficult situations regarding academic and discipline issues.  Regretfully, these wonderful ideas were never recorded.  It is my intention to start writing a handbook for teachers which collect those activities or teaching tips that can only come from what really happens within the classroom when we face real problems and real students.  I want to focus on ideas to address large classes of academic and behavior struggling students.  Similarly, I keep in mind the possibility of building learning communities where continuous professional development workshops for in service teachers are held. I am picturing myself running one of those workshops.

                The biggest gain of this master program was my learning about how to conduct a research study.  It is my goal to research about the effectiveness of the communicative approach in the Ecuadorian context.  At this moment I have my beliefs based on my own experience of learning English in an environment where the language is almost never a need.  I want to confirm or disconfirm my hypothesis about second language learning.  I do not believe that my students can learn English through the communicative approach exclusively considering the time they are exposed to the language in a day and the number of students per class.  Furthermore, taking into account that the critical period of middle and high school students is over by the time they start formal instruction, why not consider using Spanish to promote language awareness? I hope to be able to conduct this study and use the findings to enhance the effectiveness of the teaching and learning process in Ecuadorian classrooms.  

FINAL REFLECTION

It seems like yesterday when I arrived in here, attended to orientation sessions and soon after classes started.  That was the starting point of the achievement of a goal I have been leaving behind for years my master degree.  My learning experience here can be comparable to riding a rollercoaster.  Sometimes up, sometimes down.  Now that it is coming to the end I can say that even those not very pleasant situations helped me to grow personally, academically, and professionally.

From the personal point of view, I must say that living the experience of the university life in USA helped me know myself better.  I can openly say that my biggest strength is my high sense of discipline for getting things done while lack of self-confidence is a weakness I have to overcome.  I understand that my personal beliefs have an impact in my actions.  Recently I was asked about how the issue of white privilege is dealt in Ecuador.  I responded that it is not a problem at all.  However, when I was told to think of the race of the majority of people who are in prison, I realize that it is a problem I have not considered before.  I concluded that the invisibility of problems is a problem.  Being aware of what I believe and how this affect to my teaching is a daily practice I anticipate sticking to.  Finally, I learned to keep balance in my life.  I strongly believe that enjoying life doing what we love is as much important as devoting time to long study hours.  I have been able to run six miles every day and still stick to my due dates efficiently.  It is my belief that this personal growth will help me to understand my future students better.

From the academic angle, I can say that I have gained extraordinary valuable knowledge.  Terms such as scaffolding, comprehensible input, zone of proximal development, affective filter are some examples of my repertoire as a teacher.  This knowledge gives me the ground to rationalize my practices in the classroom.  Similarly, I feel that my language skills have improved.  Getting involved in the American culture gave me the opportunity to go from using language from the text to using authentic language.  Expressions like have a good one or you bet are never found in texts.   Another significant learning has to do with specific strategies I am eager to apply.  Choice boards is one of them.  I understood the importance of giving the students what they want and they want choices.  Also, technology is an element that I will integrate to my teaching despite the many barriers I might face.  I anticipate linking assignment and technology.  I am sure that students will feel motivated to do a homework which is challenging and non-traditional.  All this learning is leading me towards higher teaching performance.

            From the professional perspective, my biggest gain was my understanding of the impact of research in education.  I feel particularly motivated with the idea of taking the role of a teacher-researcher.  Along the classes taken I had the opportunity to deeply reflect on my teaching practices and beliefs.  From these reflections, I concluded that in one way or another I did conduct research in my classes, I did reflect on how the lesson went and used that information to inform next classes in the past.  However,  I recognize now that the process was incomplete.  I have not taken the time to record my reflections and discoveries for further reference.   It is my intention to keep a record of significant conclusions gotten out of self-reflections, peers discussions, professional readings or conferences, and research results for later socialization.  This way, I can spread professionalism and commitment seeds among my colleagues.    

  

               In conclusion,  I want to say that being a better person makes me a better professional. The knowledge in my brain and the passion in my heart are the perfect combination which regulates my actions on a daily basis.