A colleague from Brazil asks of the ways to develop help teaching to have more interesting classes. She wants to improve her teaching experience and students’ impression about her teaching. I found this question intriguing as it challenges most teachers including myself. Therefore, I wrote her this response which you can read below..

I can see how honest and simple your question is. In fact, this is the question the majority of us - juniors and seniors - ask everyday. There are many things that could affect a group of students. If you are asking how to develop your teaching skills, you may start with personal and professional development experiences. Networking with other colleagues through local communities, communities of practice, online list-serves could all help on that aspect. We should not also forget the secret our ancestors had, which is ‘reading’. It is that missing key to knowledge, experiences, motivation, and aspiration.

The second aspect would be your students population or as Holliday (1994 &1999) describes it as a “small culture” rather than a big group that belongs to a certain culture or nationality. I personally experience differences in students’ attitude and learning experiences from day to day, or sometimes from an hour to the other, according to many factors. For example, understanding students needs and interests could help a lot. Building on their motivation and understanding their differences also make it easier to interact together in meaningful learning situations. You should also remember that there is no ‘best’ or most effective way of teaching as some people like to call it. Instead, you better think of what works for your classes at a certain time. Planning your lessons, brainstorming, and adding some collaborative activities that foster autonomy and independent learning are all good starting points. Don’t forget to observe and ask people to observe your teaching. Students feedback through surveys or interviews could be useful tools for your use as well. The most important thing is to always ask yourself, how to relate what I do/ teach to meaning and more contextual situations in students’ real life. I think that is one thing we try to do through project-based learning and other similar class initiatives.

I hope these simple ideas might help as a starting point. However, I myself can’t deny that I sometimes ask myself the same question..

Tags: Improvment, Perceptions, Teachers, Teaching