One of the most invigorating things about teaching is that we never stop learning. The complexity of the dynamic interaction among teachers, students and subject matter continually gives birth to an endless number of questions to answer, problems to solve, issues to ponder. Every time we walk into a classroom to teach we face some of those issues, and if we are growing teacher, we learn something. We will find out how well a technique works, how a student processes language, how classroom interaction can be improved, how to assess a student’s competence, how emotions enter into learning, or how our teaching styles affects learners. One way to discover them is only by learning on and on for a life time. Consequently, as we step into this profession, we need to know some of our major professional goals (Pennington, 1990: 150 as cited in Brown, 2001: 426) as follows:
2. The analytical skills necessary for assessing different teaching contexts and classroom conditions.
3. An awareness, of alternative teaching techniques and the ability to put these into practice,
4. The confidence and skill to alter our teaching techniques as needed.
5. Practical experience with different teaching techniques.
6. Informal knowledge of ourselves and our students.
7. Interpersonal communication skills.
8. Attitudes of flexibility and openness to change.
These eight different goals can provide continuing career growth for many, many years as we strive to do a better and better job of teaching. But we must be patient! Don’t expect to become a “master” teacher overnight. Right now as we begin our teaching career, set some realistic and practical goals that we can focus on without being overwhelmed by everything you have to attend to when we teach. Be consistent with what we have set! Good Luck Teachers!
Reference:
Brown, H.Douglas. 2001. Teaching by Principles. An Interactive Approach to Language
Pedagogy. Englewood
Cliffs: Prentice Hall.
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