professional development

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UNIVERSIDAD CATOLICA DE LA SSMA. CONCEPCION PROFFESIONAL DEVELOPMENT INTERVIEW DIDACTICA DEL INGLES II FACULTAD DE EDUCACION PEDAGOGIA MEDIA EN INGLES BY JUAN CANCINO NIDIA GIL ESTEFANY MILANCA ANA LUNA TEACHER ASTRID GUERRA DATE Nov 28 th , 2012

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Page 1: professional development

UNIVERSIDAD CATOLICA DE LA SSMA. CONCEPCION

PROFFESIONAL DEVELOPMENT INTERVIEW

DIDACTICA DEL INGLES II

FACULTAD DE EDUCACION

PEDAGOGIA MEDIA EN INGLES

BY

JUAN CANCINO

NIDIA GIL

ESTEFANY MILANCA

ANA LUNA

TEACHER

ASTRID GUERRA

DATE

Nov 28th, 2012

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Table of Contents

Table of contents……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………2

Introduction ............................................................................................................................. 3

Theoretical Framework ......................................................................................................... 4-6

Description of the interviewee and data collection ……………………………………….…… ………………….6-11

Analysis ………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….12-16

Conclusion…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..17-18

References…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..19

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INTRODUCTION

“The teacher is the ultimate key to educational change and school

improvement” (Hargreaves and Fullan, 1992). As Hargreaves and Fullan said,

teachers are a fundamental key in order to improve education; regarding this, that

is why is important to have knowledge about professional development as future

teachers. For instance, to be a teacher is not only to implement the curriculum in

our classes, but also to adapt it to our learners’ needs, in order to be more

understandable and manageable for them to be learnt; moreover, we must not

only have knowledge about our subject matter, in our case English, but also must

be developed our knowledge of pedagogy and methodology. Different aspects of

professional development according to different authors will be covered, but our

main goal in this work is to analyze deeply Matt Sinclair’s professional

development, an UCSC literature teacher.

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Theoretical Framework or the theoretical background on professional

development in the teaching of English as a foreign language and classroom

research

Regarding professional development in teaching English as a foreign

language and classroom research, there are several authors that help us

understand deeply the concepts and features that involve this topic which is highly

relevant for us as teachers to be.

Concerning developing our professional competence, Joanne Pettis

declared three important points. The first one, according to Pettis has relation with

principles, knowledge, and skills. She points out that these three elements have to

work together when comes to develop our profession, what is not just to have the

ability to teach, also requires a balance of the elements mentioned earlier. The

second point is related to changing needs, because novice and experienced

teachers have different needs. Regarding this point, it is compulsory that teachers

have to discover what they need to teach. The third and last point is connected

with personal commitment. Pettis mentioned that it is our responsibility to be

updated with new techniques and material that could help us as teachers.

Elizabeth Taylor developed research in your classroom. She mentioned in

the paper her concern about working in groups or individually, and most of her

observations are presented with question-answer format. According to Taylor

(2002) everyone can do a research, she also mentioned that it can be collaborative

or individual which will depend on your context. Moreover, Taylor presented an

example of a teacher that was concerned about her lessons that seemed to be

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very teacher-directed. The findings associated with the research in her own class

let her to be able to see that in groups there is more interaction; nonetheless, she

also found some negative aspects. Finally what is presented by Taylor is that

everyone can do a research with a purpose to solve specific problems.

It is important to know what a professional is, and it’s related to this, Ur

states that a professional is someone whose work involves performing a certain

function with some degree of expertise. To have a better understanding of what

means to be a professional, Ur compares the term professional with amateur, lay,

technician and academic. Lay is a person that does not have knowledge about a

particular subject and a professional is someone who possesses certain

knowledge about the field. Amateur is someone who does things for fun, on the

other hand, a professional is someone who prepares oneself to do the job.

Technician is someone who performs a certain activity with skill and a professional

is someone that does not just acquire a skill but also someone who takes

courses. Finally an academic is someone who is focused on thinking and

researching, on the other hand the professional is primarily occupied in real time

action in order to improve action.

Brown in continuing your teacher education states that a great thing about

teaching is that you never stop learning. He also suggested four roles to apply in

our early stage of teaching such as setting realistic goals, setting priorities, taking

risks and practicing principles of stress management; moreover, Brown makes a

list of some characteristics of a good ESL teacher. He declared that one of the

difficulties and scary things about teaching, is classroom observation and research,

because we tend to fall into the routine of the class. Furthermore, it is important to

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point out in Brown research the term teacher collaboration, because teaching is

changing rapidly and it is compulsory to work with others in order to stay updated.

Description of interviewee and data collection

Interviewee: Matt Sinclair

Profession: Literature teacher at UCSC.

The person we chose is Matt Sinclair, whose nationality is Australian; he is not

actually a teacher, because his undergraduate studies are nursing, and his

postgraduates studies are writing in literature. Even though he is not a teacher, he

knows a lot about literature and writing, so he teaches literature and extensive

reading, not only in the in the new program of the English teaching major at UCSC,

but also in the old one. We made an interview that consisted of 14 questions

aiming to the professional development of his career as a teacher from UCSC, and

the interview lasted 6 minutes with 39 seconds.

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Results: A transcription of the interview.

Interviewer: Why did you choose you major?

Interviewee: I'm not actually a teacher , my undergraduate studies are nursing and

international studies and my postgraduates studies are writing in literature and I

chose them because I like the literature but I particularly chose it because of the

writing area of creative writing, that answer your question ?

Importance he/she gives to his/her professional development

Interviewer: How important is professional development for you?

Interviewee: I think that professional development is the realization that nobody is

perfectly prepared, people who are not interested in perfection development tend

to end up repeating the same thing over and over again, with not critical reflection

about it and that is a problem, and that is why I think professional development is

yes, what a pity.

Interviewer: What have you done to promote your professional competence?

Interviewee: Well In my area there is very little that you can do in a structured

way, most of what I do is self-tutoring I supposed, when I need to teach something

that I haven’t taught before or in the process of just updating what I am doing then I

am looking at researching, it is fairly self-directed but it is very constant.

Interviewer: How can you best continue to grow professionally?

Interviewee: I think by continually doing new things rather than just doing the

same things in the same way, I guess in sort of point where you have to go and do

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something which is quite different to you have done before, this has been in the

last few years with the extensive reading with the new study plan but I think that

the period is finishing then I’ll find a different perspective doing new things.

Interviewer: You as a teacher, have you been doing the best you can do?

Interviewee: You never have that feeling actually from time to time it seems that

things work very well but it is actually fairly unusual and you are never completely

happy with what you have done because inevitably might be better. Whether you

have done the best you can or not is very subjective

Interviewer: Have you ever had any failures? What do you learn from them?

Interviewee: Most failures for literature teachers are about using texts which end

up being quite inappropriate for students so the learning from the failure is the

process of making a criteria for the selection of texts literature more appropriate,

and so they have been many failures, some my fault others some other as a

consequence of texts selected by other people. So now when I select the text I use

very different criteria to what I did initially consequence of a lot of application of

different theory and look understanding what students would actually read when

they read for fun

Importance he/she gives to studying abroad

Interviewer: Is studying abroad important for you? What do you think are the

advantages of doing it?

Interviewee: I think is good to see things from another academic perspective and it

doesn’t matter what level you are studying in Chile or in any country teachers tend

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to reproduce what they have learnt and you get things in a very traditional way and

so if you go somewhere else and you have a different perspective then allows you

to be more critical with your original perspective, whether there is in an English

speaking country or not depends on your linguistic competence, for Chilean

teachers studying in an English speaking country is a good thing.

Activities that contribute to professional development

Interviewer: Which of the following aspects contributes the most to your

professional development? Teaching journals, materials development,

feedback from colleagues, learner feedback or seminars and workshops.

Interviewee: Development of materials certainly because that’s the kind of the

thought process in a more complex way, feedback from colleagues is what

happens less just because this is fairly small university and there are not lot of

teachers teaching literature, learner feedback is certainly very important, seminars

and workshops there are not very many and they tend to be interesting.

Relevance of professional development

Interviewer: Is professional development relevant for you? If it is yes, in what

ways?

Interviewee: It is certainly just because if we do things like we have done we are

not get anywhere I think it is fairly obvious that university programs are not as

effective as they should be and professional development is one way of critiquing

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what is happening to get better results. You can actually see in the change

between the two study plans I think that the new study plan reflects this

development over time.

Professional development at UCSC

Interviewer: How important is your working environment at UCSC in terms of

promoting your professional growth?

Interviewee: Well I don’t have a contract I do not have a great deal of stability

either the institution doesn’t contribute anything, or that’s a problem.

Interviewer: Has your teaching approach changed over time?

Interviewee: My approach has changed enormously I think it’s human nature,

initially when you start teaching you tend to follow much more things you have

been instructed by other people and that time regrets you have more opportunities

to developing your own programs and things like that and I have been able to do

that.

Interviewer: Have your needs and interests remained the same or changed

over the years?

Interviewee: They have changed from being a fairly general language teacher to

being specialized in children literature and literature for young adults.

Interviewer: Do you prefer working alone or with others?

Interviewee: I don’t have a lot of choices in these things, in the new study plan I

work kind of in a team but it tends for more administrative purposes, from time to

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time I work with a colleague but then we are both very busy and we never seem be

as coordinators as we would like to be, I’m flexible I don’t mind.

Interviewer: Do you prefer to work under supervision or on your own?

Interviewee: I don't mind working at the supervision but it is very unusual for me to

find a boss from my area. I like the idea of people actually observing me and giving

me feedback but it never happens. I quite like working in teams but it’s not

necessarily practical so is good to have somebody to talk things through... It’s not

necessarily to do everything in the same way I have had the experience of

working in places where everything is given to me and I just have to follow what

they say and I hate that I think that is not actually teaching is just robotics so I

prefer in that sense to plan what I’m doing and doing in my own way but then I

quite like sharing.. With people to have two different perspectives, that interesting

too.

.

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Analysis

Matt explains that professional development is one way of critiquing what he

has been doing in order to get better results. As Pettis (2002) states it is

compulsory that teacher have to discover what they need to teach, according to

this, teachers need to be critical when comes to talk about professional

development, because things are never perfect and as Pettis also mentioned it is

our responsibility to be updated with new techniques and material that could help

us . In this way, we must be updated in new methodologies and strategies in order

to change things, with the purpose to become closer to the perfection in what we

do.

When we asked Matt about the importance about his professional

development, he says that it is an important part to improve not only his

professional skills but also his knowledge about his field; otherwise he will end up

repeating the same things over and over again, as he says while he was

interviewed. According to Pettis (2002), concerning developing our professional

competence, there are three important points to take into account, principles,

knowledge, and skills. She points out that these three elements have to work

together when comes to develop our profession, what is not just to have the ability,

to teach requires a balance of these three elements. For this reason, it is important

the connection between these three elements, otherwise teachers would tend to

do the same all the time without innovation, that’s why most of the time students

end up with low marks due to the lack of motivation, regarding this Matt highlight

that we need to call the students’ attention all the time. It has been noticed with

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Matt’s answers that for him is really important to be updated as well as trying to do

new things in order to grow professionally. He not only tries to be innovative, but

also he uses an strategy called self-tutoring that consists in learning about specific

things when he has to teach some things he has never taught before. In that sense

he feels more prepared to confront their students with updated knowledge and

materials about the topics they have to cover.

While he is talking about his performance as a teacher, he explains that he

always tries to do his best at the moment of teaching and helping students, but he

is never completely satisfied, because he thinks that he could have done it better,

and that is what all teachers and future teachers need to bear in mind because we

cannot be satisfied with what we do in our jobs, we always have to ask or work to

be better at what we do.

Matt is very careful when comes to choose a text to be read by the students,

and failures have taught him that needs to be selective when he chooses a book,

because they have to be appropriate for student’s needs and interests, the point

that Matt addressed in that answer is really important because according to Taylor

(2002) is really important when teachers know how their students work and what

they interests are.

When comes to talk about studying abroad Matt replies something very

interesting that has to do with acquiring a new perspective to see things, and they

explains that if you study abroad you will become more cri tical to the old

perspective, so you can compare and contrast both perspectives with the purpose

of making up a better perspective to work with, and become professionally better,

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this should be taken into account because Brown (2001) further explains that when

teachers continue studying, it provides them a list of goals that a teacher should

accomplish in order to become competent, such as the ability to reach their

maximum potential through a series of steps including setting realistic goals with

learners, setting priorities, taking risks and knowing how to manage effectively the

stress provoked by teaching.

At the moment he talks about his job at UCSC, he first explains that he

doesn’t have a contract, and it is an disadvantage for his stability because as he

says he does not have a great deal of stability in the university, so in that sense he

feels uncomfortable and his professional development cannot reach a higher level.

All the time that Matt have worked, the approach he has been used have

changed over time, because he explains that at the beginning when he started to

work he followed more instructions from other people, and he regrets not having

followed his own interests in order to produce his own material, approaches or

programs to make his process of teaching better, but now he has been able to do it

because teachers need to change their methodologies while they are teaching,

they need to innovate, make use of different approaches, try out new things in

order to make the teaching-learning process more productive. Changing

methodologies and finding new strategies for teaching is really important because

according to Pettis (2002) teachers are in a continuous process of learning and it is

extremely positive since it involves the development of their professional

competences for a better quality of teaching.

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He as a teacher has changed as well, because in their answers he says that

he started as a general language teacher, and now he is a specialized teacher not

only in literature for chi ldren, but a lso in literature for young adults. So he hasn’t

been stacked in one position, he has improved and has one specialization, and

that is what professional development is, not be pleased by little, teacher always

have to think how to become better professionals, as Matt has been doing it.

Referring to how matt likes to work, he says that would like to work in groups

but he doesn’t have the opportunity because the university is fairly small, and there

are not more literature teacher to work with, he says that has the opportunity with

the new plan of the English teaching program to work cooperatively with a

colleague, but they just work together in administrative staff, not academically.

However maybe it is not a big problem, because according to Taylor (2002)

everyone can do a research and this can be collaborative or individual which will

depend on the context.

Feedback is always need in order to see things from other perspectives and

improve what we do. In the case of Matt he does not have the opportunity to do it,

but we have and need to have the instances in which we can work cooperatively,

to achieve goals, and develop our professions in the best way. Matt doesn’t mind

working under supervision, even though he never has somebody supervising him,

it is very unusual, but he likes the idea of somebody observing him and giving him

feedback, but he says it never happens, as we mentioned before teachers need to

work cooperatively, in order to give and receive feedback from colleagues, share

materials, resources and ideas, and so on, that’s why Brown states that teacher

collaboration has a significant importance because teaching is changing rapidly

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and it is compulsory to work with others in order to stay updated. Moreover, Matt

also mentioned some experiences that he had in some workplaces, he told us

about working in places where everything was planned beforehand, and he just

had to act as a robot, without changing or adapting anything, but also he told us

than now he has the opportunity to innovate in the classroom, try new things

out, to plan what he is doing and doing in his own way, so for a teacher is really

important freedom in what he or she does, in order to try new things out, to use

different things in order to see which is the best to make use of and so on.Finally is

important to mention that Brown makes a list of some characteristics of a good

ESL teacher, and he declared that one of the difficulties and scary things about

teaching, is classroom observation and research, because we tend to fall into the

routine of the class.

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CONCLUSION

As a conclusion, regarding what we have analyzed, we could say that it is

really important to be constantly studying, especially if your are a teacher, a

professional in the field of education, who is an agent of change, according to

Brown (2011). As we know, education is a field that is constantly changing, due to

the fact teachers should be updated in order to provide different strategies and

techniques that suit the students’ needs, so teachers must be in constant training

and testing themselves with the purpose to be better professionals.

We based our analysis on different authors, for instance, Regarding Brown

(2011) and Ur (2002), we totally agree with their point of view to promote a

constant process of learning in professionals. Furthermore, from our perspective, it

is necessary to be ensure that we are updated not only in terms of our subject

which is English, but also in terms of methodology, the strategies and techniques

we use with our students should be updated, and appropriate in order to not teach

the same content using a repetiti ve sequence of activities and tasks that become

inefficient over time.

Secondly, another idea that is pointed out by the authors is the collaborative

work. At the moment of analyzing this perspective that Brown mentioned, we

consider it relevant because no matter if you are an experienced or a beginner in

the educational area, there are always issues with our lessons, strategies or

materials that require an improvement. We totally agree that these issues would

not be corrected without the comments or feedback from our colleagues. Feedback

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received from another professional always will be a suitable way to improve our

weaknesses and reinforce our strengths.

We strongly believe that being teacher is an important work not only for

teaching students and help them to develop their skills, but also for modeling future

professionals within our society. As it was mentioned before, we totally agree with

Brown’s idea that teachers are agents for world changes. From very earlier, we are

involved and we grow together with teachers, who have encouraged us to being

the future professionals that we are. Even though, as English students, we have

experienced in our pedagogical practices that the hardest part of being teacher is

to change the underrated perspective of Chilean society from our work. People use

to underestimate the challenging work behind teaching, they do not know what

involves teach and the dedication that educators deliver everyday to do their best.

Finally, we consider that everyday we are learning new things that help us to grow

professionally, and we expect that in a future, not so far, people and our social

system recognize our work as its deserve.

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References

Brown, H., San Francisco, U. S. (2001). “Teaching by principles and international

approach to language pedagogy”.

Hayes, D. (2000) cascade training and teachers’ professional development. ELT

journal, 54/2.

Pettis, J. (2002 ). Developing our professional competence: some reflections.

Taylor, E. (2002). Research in your own classroom.

Ur, P. (2002). The English teacher as professional.