Essay

 

Highlights of my personal learning experience during the course

There is always something to improve in a language learning class. Teaching implies a astrong social commitment and a constant innovation to cope with the different personalities and learning needs you deal with in every new class. Additionally, all teachers have different personality types and instructional preferences. However, as Shrum and Glissan (2010) mentioned, "students are more important than things or ideas" ( p.354) and the activities and assessment included in the lessons have to facilitate, humanize, and socialize the students' language experience and also to improve their family environment.

Based on this strong conviction, these are the highlights of my personal learning experience during the course:

A change of attitude

Each assignment represented a step ahead in my task as a facilitator. Coming back to college in this Masters' Program class has been a rewarding experience as for sharing my teaching inquires with my colleagues.
Besides, I decided to implement the activities in my own classroom, which gave me the chance to validate them and analize their pro's and con's for further development. I realized than the most these activities use language for communication and based on real life situations, students will interiorize the language learning process through socializing and sharing their own expereinces in a relaxing a and anxiety-free classroom environment.

Feedback 

Being a teacher demands a constant exchange of knowledge among colleagues. Sharing tips, activities and assessment techniques with my colleagues, as well as the constructive criticism obtained throughout the course, has improved my teaching and the way I visualize my classroom and students.

Areas of improvement

Assessment

It is definitely an area to be constantly improved because students' needs vary and demand special attention.
Since nothing is for granted in an assessment process, it must reflect a serious commitment on behalf of the teacher to support a formative evaluation process, one in which students find it both achievable and enjoyable. Tests have to be planned on a balanced basis and by using appropriate items that enhance students' analytic capacity rather than memoristic and overwhelmed exercises. Assessment must reflect students´ language performance.

Use of the cornerstones of testing 

All assessments and grading instruments must include several cornerstones of testing to make them reliable and effective. I have to improved my evaluation, assessing, and testing procedures through including these important pieces of teaching advice

Rubrics

Rubrics have been traditionally applied as quick and overall grading instruments that only measure learners' knowledge in terms of a score. I am convinced than eventhough analytic rubrics ar far more time consuming, the fact of designing criterion, levels of accomplishemnt, and most important, giving appropriate feedback on the students' task performance, definitely contributes to improve students' language acquisition and also motivates for constant growing on both classroom participants, teachers and learners.

Action plans

Implement formative/alternative assessment 

As Coome et al. (2007) mentioned, there are several types of alternative assessment that can be successfully used in the classroom, such as self-assessment, portfolio assessment, student-designed tests, learner-centered assessment, projects, and presentations (p. xx). Students are always expecting dinamic activities in order to enjoy and assimilate a language that is not their own.
It implies to look for strategies and techniques that facilitate their language learning process and potentiate their cognitive skills. As a collateral effect, there will be room for analizyng the strengths and weaknesses of our learners.

Improving lesson plans

Lesson plans should be based on appropriate objectives and language strategies that address the diverse needs of the learners. Not all students perceive and process information the same way, so it is important to be constantly aware of diversity issues. This course has convinced me that learners are benefited depending on the way they are taught and assessed. Besides, I am planning to ask for peer observation to observe my activities and supervise my rubrics and teaching process as a whole for further changes as needed.


References

Coombe, C.A., Folse, K.S., & Hubley, N.J. (2007).A Practical Guide to Assessing

            English Language Learners. Ann Arbor, Ml: University of Michigan.

Srum, J.L. & Glisan, E.W. Teacher´s handbook: Contextualized language instruction (4th Ed.).

           Boston, MA: Heinle.