UNIVERSIDAD MAYOR DE SAN SIMÓN

FACULTAD DE HUMANIDADES Y CIENCIAS DE LA EDUCACIÓN

CARRERA DE LINGÜÍSTICA APLICADA A LA ENSEÑANZA DE
LENGUAS

Teacher development:
practice, reflection, sharing.

Names; Orlando Rojas

Danitza Abasto
Lenny Sandoval
Maria Cruz
Maria E. Llanque
Mario Rodriguez
Maria E. Cortez
Roly Claros
 Teacher development:
practice, reflection, sharing.

This unit discusses the nature and

importance of teacher development and
then looks at ways you can progress
professionally in the course of a full
teaching schedule: through private
reflection and interaction with colleagues.
Development for survival
and progress

A teacher can and should advance in

professional expertise and knowledge
throughout his or her career, and such
advances do not depend on formal courses
or external input.
Ongoing teacher development is important
not only for your own sense of progress and
professional advancement; in some
situations it may even make a crucial
difference between survival and dropping
out.
There is also a problem of professional survival in
lat years of one’s career, caused by the
phenomenon known as “burn-out”. This is not so
much a feeling of failure as one of disillusionment,
boredom, loss of momentum. Burn-out usually
comes on gradually, although it may be accelerated
by personal crises such as family or financial
problems.
which is the burn out
The burn-out syndrome is
a condition which roughly
consist in the presence of
prolonged stress in the
body to the emotional
and interpersonal
stressors that occur at
work, including chronic
fatigue, inefficiency and
denial of what happened.
 Personal reflection 1. It is not organized
• The first and most • This is to some extent an
important basis for advantage, as it allows
professional progress is you to give full rein to
simply your own reflection your imagination and
on daily classroom creativity and to use all
events. Very often this your personal knowledge,
reflection is quite but sooner or later the
spontaneous and disadvantages become
informal, and happens apparent.
without any conscious • (irritation at an
intention on your part. uncooperative student or
colleague, for example)
 2. It’s solitary
• Personal reflection enables you to
draw on your own experience only.
• Even the most brilliant and creative of
us can learn from others things we
could not learn on our own.
 SHARING WITH A
COLLEAGUE
Informal discussions with a colleague
with whom you feel at ease can
contribute a lot to your own
development, as well as boosting
morale.
 1. Sharing problems
• There is a sense of shame or
inhibition, a fear of losing face, that
sometimes prevents some teachers
from admitting the existence of
teaching problems to others; but once
this is overcome, the results are
usually rewarding.
 2. Sharing Successes
• In some institutions there is a feeling of
rivalry between teachers which stops them
revealing professional ‘secrets’ to one
another for fear of being ‘overtaken’ in some
kind of professional race.
• Everyone can gain by learning from
everyone else.
IN HOUSE STAFF
MEETINGS
• Meetings of groups of teachers in the same
institution can also provide a forum
for
sharing reflections, problems and

successes.

• Formally structured to make sure everyone

participates and benefits. Some possible
formats are the following.
 DECISION-MAKING
• For example, teacher may feel assessment
procedures are inadequate, or there may be
a proposal to buy new materials.
• PARTICIPANTS DISCUSS THE PROBLEM
IN ORDER TO ACHIEVE CONSENSUS ON
THE SOLUTION.
• The explicit objective is functional rather than
for the sake of participants´ learning. The
discussion must involve issues that have to
do with professional knowledge and action,
and therefore is likely to contribute indirectly
to teacher development.
 INDIVIDUAL PRESENTATION
• One of the members of the staff begins the
meeting by making a presentation

Can be a problem they had, a new

teaching
idea, a thought-provoking experience
or
something they have read.
The presentation is followed by open
discussion.
 MAY WE RECOMMEND...?
• Here, each teacher suggests a teaching idea
they have used recently and describes how it
went.
• Contributions have to be kept fairly short in order
to enable everyone to participate.
• Discussion of each idea is therefore limited.
 TEACHER TRAINING OR
DEVELOPMENT SESSIONS

• The staff decides together on a topic

connected with teaching which they would
like to study. One of the members of staff
initiates a session on this topic based on a
teacher-training or teacher-development
activity.
• Such sessions work best if there is a set
time-slot set aside for them during the week,
and if members of staff take turns preparing
the activity which will function as their basis.
 Teacher Appraisal

•It is important to carry out some

periodic appraisal of your teaching
•Obvious sources of feedback on your
teaching are colleagues, your own
students-and yourself.
 Feedback from colleagues
• Asking a colleague to come in and
observe a lesson of yours and give
you feedback may present difficulties.
• One possibility is to make a mutual
arrangement with a like-minded
colleague: «I’ll observe your lesson,
you observe mine, and we’ll share
feedback»
 Observation Sheet 1

TIME EVENTS COMMENT/

QUESTIONS
 Observation Sheet 2
WHAT LEARNES WHAT IS TEACHER’S COMMENT
DO INVOLVES PURPOSE
 STUDENT FEEDBACK
• Student are an excellent source of feedback on your teaching:
 A structured questionnaire is one possibility. For example:

Student feedback sheet on teaching

Name:_____________________________________ Classs_____________
1.On the whole I feel I am learning very well/fairly well/don’t know/not very
well/badly.
2.I find the lessons interesting /moderately interesting/boring.
3.Things I would like to do MORE in our course: pronunciation
practice/vocabulary/grammar/listening/speaking/reading/writing/literature/
homework/group of pair work/individual work/other.
4.Things I would like to do LESS in our course: : pronunciation
practice/vocabulary/grammar/listening/speaking/reading/writing/literature/
homework/group of pair work/individual work/other
5.In order to get the most out of the course, I need to try to…
6.In order to make the course better, my suggestions to my teachers are…
7.Anything else:
 Self-appraisal
• Personal self-appraisal should also be
done in writing.
 One simple system is to divide a page
into two columns, headed «problems»
and «successes», to fill in appropriate
items as completely and honestly as
you can, and then go on to consider
conclusions.
Unit three: advancing
further (1):intake

Find ways to
learn more and
expand the
knowledge
level
professionally.
Reading

When choosing
what to read
Annex.
Magazines.
 Newspapers.
 Bibliography
.
 Reviews.
 University study
Academic sphere

Courses in foreign languages​​, pure or

applied linguistics, the different
branches of education, psychology or
sociology.
 Conferences and in-service
courses

Sometimes expensive to attend, offer a

rich selection of lectures, workshops,
seminars, panel discussions where you
may be able to update yourself on the
latest research and controversies, learn
new techniques and methods
The strengh of conferences – the sheer
wealth and variety of sessions and
materials available to participants
 Usually the schedule is based on a number of
parallel sessions held at any one time, so you
can attend only a small proportion of them;
and they vary widely in level and
effectiveness as well as in topic and
orientation.
 Conferences cannot supply the systematic
coverage of topics that is provided by formal
courses.
 Their other major advantage, of course, is
the opportunities they provide for meeting
practitioners from other places,
exchanging ideas and learning about each
other’s problems and solutions
 Short in-service courses are in a sense
«mini-conferences », also offering useful
learning and contact with other teachers
 Advancing further
 TECHNIQUES AND METHODS
 The first step in this direction for
practicing teachers is the sharing of a
practical classroom innovation: a
technique, a bit of material, an idea that
worked
 Moreover, participants often prefer this
type of session to the more prestigious
lecture given by international “names”
 Usually such sessions are most effective if
built round a workshop format: clear
explanation backed up by visual materials,
followed by an experimental component
and plenty opportunity for the audience to
participate and discuss.
 The same innovation can reach a wider
audience if written out as an article