What can we teach ourselves? – Marcela Cintra

Many teachers lack time and money to take courses and constantly learn something new. This has a direct impact on how much we actually develop professionally and how much our practice evolves throughout our career. The premise that we need to be in constant move in education might give us the impression that certificates are the only possible way of covering the demand. Actually, the solution lies within us as development does not depend on anything but our own will to move forward and the awareness what we need to change. Having said that, I suggest we look at three opportunities teachers have of investigating their practice and teaching themselves to teach better and better.
 
Filming your own lesson is a brave step towards awareness. You will be able to identify features of your teaching that may be hidden to you and act on them as you wish. In order to maximize the use of the filmed lesson you can invite a colleague to observe the lesson with you and discuss possible paths to take, strategies you may use in the lesson to improve the learning outcomes or address the issues observed.
 
Questioning what you do automatically may shed light on your beliefs and help you understand how to make changes to your teaching. For instance, you may realize you start every lesson by asking students about their weekend/ previous day and you assume it is because you want to break the ice or make learners feel comfortable. Here the suggestion is to question what you do and your own beliefs. What are the advantages to the learners? What if you arrive a few minutes earlier and make them feel comfortable before the lesson starts? What would the gain be to your students? And to yourself? Questioning what you do may either confirm what you already know to strengthen your practice or help you learn that there are better/ different ways of doing the same thing.
 
Experimenting with a new approach or a new technique may add variety to your lessons and broaden your teaching repertoire. A greater variety might help you read a greater number of learners and their different styles. A broader repertoire may help you make more informed decisions in the classroom (e.g. how to approach a text with two different groups) and enrich the learners’ experience in your lessons.
 
Overall, the idea is to use the experience you or your peers have to build on your own teaching practice and develop as a professional. What are your strategies?