As Vantagens da Educação Online para o Professor de Inglês

 

"Você trabalha também, ou só dá aula?" Difícil encontrar um professor que nunca ouviu essa pérola em sua vida. Como se não fôssemos ocupadíssimos com nossa profissão, pulando de uma escola para outra, preenchendo nossos horários da melhor e mais otimizada forma possível. Nessa atribulada rotina, fica bastante complicado encaixar um horário fixo para dedicarmos ao nosso desenvolvimento profissional. Dessa forma, cursos online  ministrados 100% a distância e de forma assíncrona, tomam espaço cada vez mais espaço e ganham destaque dentre profissionais cujos horários são bastante ocupados, mas ao mesmo tempo flexíveis o suficiente para encaixar uma boa oportunidade de aprender mais.
Pensando nisso, a Teach-in Education criou dois cursos online para o desenvolvimento de profissionais de ensino de idiomas que desejam aprimorar seus conhecimentos, mas que não conseguem alocar um horário fixo para isso. Nossos cursos possuem a conveniência da modalidade EAD e são feitos sob medida para quem não abre mão da comodidade de poder estudar de qualquer lugar.
Nossos cursos foram elaborados levando em consideração os mais variados problemas que o professor de línguas no Brasil enfrenta. Como nosso trabalho envolve o contato direto com esses profissionais, sabemos de suas necessidades e das áreas nas quais há mais oportunidades de desenvolvimento.
Nossos cursos são ministrados em inglês. Nos links abaixo, você terá todas as informações que precisa: duração, valores e conteúdo programático para cada um deles, lembrando sempre que, uma vez matriculado, o aluno pode estudar a qualquer hora e de qualquer lugar, pois todo o conteúdo é disponibilizado ao mesmo tempo para a sua conveniência.
Saiba mais sobre nossos cursos aqui:
First Things First -Essntial Principles for Classroom Management - nova turma com início e 03/10/2016!
Beyond the Course Book - Using Alternative Resources to Enhance Learner Motivation

Mindfulness in the Language classroom

Louise Emma Potter

The kids would not stop for one second. The girl´s group up front was chatting away deciding whether the books should be on or under their desks. One of the boys realised the teacher was going to show a video, so thought it would be helpful to turn off the lights in the middle of the teacher´s explanation. Three boys sitting in the middle section of the class decided to stand up and get something from their backpacks, which were at the back of the class. Meanwhile, the teacher was trying to explain the next activity. Complete chaos. The kids had just arrived from P.E classes. Does this outline a familiar picture?

In the scenario above, the children were stressed and anxious. They had just come back from a sports competition in their P.E class. However, even when their previous class had not been P.E., they were stressed and anxious. Their parents are stressed and anxious. Life is stressing. Parents are busy rushing their kids up and down and in and out of activities. Conversations tend to be always about schedules. What you are going to do and when. Moments of random conversation or even silence are rare nowadays. Classes have fixed schedules and teachers need to scram as much content as they can into a short period of time.

Studies have shown that in order to learn, children need to feel safe. Their minds need to be relaxed and their bodies need to be comfortable. Unfortunately, children seldom find themselves in these states. Schedules are overrated, family meals are scarce and healthy eating habits is now a world crisis.

As teachers, we are worried about getting our students engaged. We play games and motivate them to use the language. Warmups and TPR activities are essential to get our students involved and active. Language classes are noisy and they should be that way, is what we say.

However, sometimes less is more.

On occasions, starting the class with a calming activity is best than trying to get them straight into the classroom topic.

I believe teaching mindfulness is a must in the classroom nowadays. Mindfulness is a technique of mastering "living in the moment". It can be done at the beginning of a class, to calm students down and have them focus on what you want them to focus: your lesson.

Teachers might say, “We don´t have enough time. Our classes are 45 minutes long”. Again, I say…sometimes less is more. If you have 25 good minutes with your class, it is better than having 45 minutes of chaos.

Below are some ideas of how to put some simple mindfulness practices into your classroom:

Concentrating on breathing

As your students arrive from their previous class, have the lights dimmed down. Ask students to sit down and take deep breaths. By breathing deeply, our body calms down. Ask students to count to three as they inhale and count again to three as they exhale. They can put their hands on the chest and belly to feel the movement of their body.

Using the senses

Sensory experiences help children relax. Ask students to close their eyes and play a relaxing song in the background. Another example is to ask them to pay attention to all the sounds they can hear outside the classroom. You can use smell and taste as a way to make they focus. Have them taste different flavours. Play with dough, clay, cream and ask them to guess what they are holding. Use the target language to name the flavours, sound and senses of touch.

Using imagination

Ask your students to close their eyes and tell them a story. Have them imagine the person, place you are describing. Later on, you can ask them to draw what you described. Relate the story to the language/topic you are working on.

Explain to your students the theory that underlies these practices they are performing. You do not have to go into details; just remind them why they are being done. Your class will definitely have a different outcome. Share your experiences with me!

Implementing the 7 C’s into our language classroom

(Louise Potter)

The world is changing at a faster pace than we can actually handle. By the time we master an app, thousands more have already been launched. New words are constantly being added to the English language even as you are reading this article. When we are under the impression we have finally reached a stage in life when we can relax a little and rely on all that we have learned up to this moment, life shows us that we only actually know 5% of what there is out there to learn, no matter what area of expertise we work in.

We live in an immensely diversified world. People come from different backgrounds, speak languages we sometimes have not even heard of and some of us want to accomplish plans others would never dream of in a lifetime!

However, schools are still teaching as if we lived in the industrial era. Students sit, staring at each other’s backs, listening to teachers lecture. Students learn the same content, at the same pace, and are being tested for something they will probably never use in their careers or lifetimes.

In order to prepare our students, who live in a bubble under their parent’s and school’s supervision, we need to go beyond content, curriculum and course books. We need to change the way we teach. Easy? Definitely not!

Some teachers understand this change and try to overcome it by adding fascinating topics to their curricula, or maybe by learning how to use an outstanding technological tool and implementing it into the classroom, making students a little less passive inside the class.

A shift in our fixed teaching mindset and attitude has to take place. What teachers do not realise is that when we implement the 7 C’s, we do not have to add anything to the class. We have all we need. The change is in our approach, our attitude, our mindset, in the questions we ask, and most of all, how we ask certain questions. We do not need students to answer questions, but prepare them to ask the essential questions. This prepares them more for their future than counting on content-based classes where students are supposed to raise their hands in order to answer the teacher’s inquiries.

Speaking of the 7C’s, which are they?

Critical thinking – it relates to problem solving, analysing solutions and project-based learning;

Communication – it relates to teaching students how to do oral presentations, work on their inter-personal relationships and how to use the medias in a sensible manner;

Collaboration – this skill helps students understand how to work in groups and the importance of teamwork, compromise, understanding and accepting;

Cross-cultural understanding - understanding other cultures helps students reflect upon their own culture; tolerance and acceptance are aspects we need to work on inside our classrooms;

Computing – Effective use technology-related tools;

Career - working on life-long learning;

Creativity – classrooms need to build on students’ creativity, design learning, implementing strategies for artful presentations.

If we are able to spice up our classes by having a little more student agency and less teacher-centeredness, designing activities so they include the seven points mentioned above, teachers will spend less time having to worry about engaging and motivating students. Much has to be changed regarding what we are doing in the classroom. Our roles have changed. Instead of demanding certain attitudes from students, they should be able to decide how they want to learn. Our role is to guide them along the way. The education system is shifting, and as we all know, when things shift, things shake. Changes will always cause clashes and meet up with big resistances.

Course books should be used as a guide and our students’ interests as the main input in our classes. Having clear goals in our minds related to grammar points or functions, clear views of our students’ interests, instruction that is based on creative activities where students can be agents of their learning is a good start. The shift from teacher-centered to student-centered classes is much easier said than done. Nevertheless, we need to begin sometime. Here are some ideas:

  • Changing the way we ask questions in the classroom. Have students ask the questions;
  • Working more on well-designed projects;
  • Having clear learning goals beyond the language;
  • Using learning centers for mixed-ability classes;
  • Having students teach their own peers;
  • Having students work more in groups and collaborating with each other;
  • Teaching culture through language;
  • Allowing students to be creative and use their own learning styles in presenting their work;
  • Bringing the world into the classroom;
  • Differentiating your instruction within the three phases (content, process and product);
  • Allowing space for students to be active and agents of their learning process.

If our students do not learn the way we are teaching, we definitely need to change the way we teach. Students of the 21st century have skills we teachers do not yet embrace. It is time we do so. It is not an easy task; in fact, the shift is quite drastic. However, language should be the means of leaning a topic and not the end product.

Formação continuada – Por que o desenvolvimento profissional protege nossa profissão

(Juliana Tavares)

Um dia desses eu estava com um pequeno abacaxi nas mãos: precisava de um médico em outra cidade, onde não conhecia muita gente. Sem saber por onde começar, pois não conhecia nenhum dos profissionais que cadastrados em meu convênio, resolvi acionar o Mr. Google e estudar as informações disponíveis sobre eles antes de tomar uma decisão. Sobre alguns, poucas coisas relevantes, além de várias ocorrências nos catálogos médicos. De outros era possível visualizar um currículo Lattes e algumas aparições em congressos. Para outros, no entanto, a lista de publicações, entrevistas, artigos e referências era bastante extensa. No final das contas, esses últimos foram os selecionados para uma pesquisa mais cuidadosa, que incluía endereços e perguntas a outros médicos conhecidos. Porém, pela primeira seleção, só passaram aqueles sobre os quais encontrei informações positivas e relevantes quanto a sua formação.

Escolher um profissional que vai cuidar de sua saúde não é fácil. É claro que a internet nos oferece a grande vantagem da informação e da pesquisa, algo que vinte anos atrás era impossível. Também concordo, em parte, com aqueles que argumentam que nem sempre boa formação significa bom profissional. Em parte. Tenho certeza que, se dois currículos fossem postos diante de você para uma escolha “cega”, você escolheria o que apresentasse melhor experiência e formação. A boa formação conta. E quando ela é boa de verdade, ela faz muita diferença. O profissional que não para no tempo, que recicla sua prática, que acredita na impermanência das coisas e no quanto ainda tem para aprender, sempre será um profissional mais completo e mais qualificado. E isso não vale apenas para médicos, mas para qualquer profissional.

Pensando em tudo isso, minha pergunta é: se desenvolvimento profissional contínuo é tão importante para médicos, advogados, engenheiros, pintores e arquitetos, por que seria diferente com o professor, em particular com o professor de idiomas? E mais: por que ainda existe tanto professor que não atribui a importância devida a esse assunto?

Não há espaço suficiente para responder a essas perguntas. Acredito que as respostas sejam as mais variadas, abrindo espaço para bastante controvérsia e discussões interessantes. Porém, ao invés de ficar buscando razões para o problema da formação continuada, vou procurar elencar algumas razões que justificariam a busca pelo desenvolvimento profissional como forma de fortalecer a profissão de professor. Vamos pensar no desenvolvimento profissional como uma ferramenta poderosa para o profissional, cujo caminho será determinado por ele, de acordo com o que move sua paixão. Se após essas razões você ainda não quiser continuar melhorando sempre, talvez seja a hora de repensar sua carreira...

Desenvolvimento profissional gera autoconfiança
Professores cuja prática é respaldada em informações, estudos e ideias sólidas são mais autoconfiantes e críticos. Precisamos dessas qualidades se quisermos ser exemplos para nossos alunos.

Desenvolvimento profissional aumenta a motivação do professor
 
Você já teve aquela sensação, após sair de um workshop ou terminar um curso, de querer colocar tudo em prática o mais rápido possível? Sempre que aprendo alguma coisa nova, fico pensando em como posso aplicá-la em minhas aulas, ou com minha equipe de professores. Então me vejo tão empolgada com minha profissão que me pergunto o que eu seria se não fosse professora! Essa motivação é muito importante para qualquer profissional, pois nos dá forças para continuar atuando apesar das dificuldades e, sejamos honestos, em nossa profissão elas são abundantes!

Desenvolvimento profissional ajuda a valorizar a profissão  

Infelizmente, a profissão de professor não é sinônimo de prestígio e valorização em nosso país. Sentimos na pele esse problema, todos os dias. Mas e se todos os professores pudessem investir em mais formação e desenvolvimento? Creio que o panorama de nossa profissão seria bem diferente. Fala-se muito hoje sobre a palavra empoderamento; informação, conhecimento e qualificação geram poder. Nossa profissão precisa se empoderar para ter a força e o reconhecimento necessários para exigir o valor e o respeito que merece.

Desenvolvimento profissional aumenta nosso grau de exigência  

Quando nos tornamos profissionais mais exigentes e críticos, podemos reivindicar com autoridade o que precisamos em nosso contexto de ensino. Buscamos instituições sérias, que nos respeitam e retribuem nosso comprometimento. Entendemos a importância de nosso papel e nos prontificamos a trabalhar pelo bem coletivo, sem nos contentar com menos que o merecido. Exigimos mais de nós e de todo o contexto ao nosso redor.

Quais as consequências dessa atitude para nossa profissão? Ensino de qualidade, professores melhor remunerados, melhor ambiente de trabalho, para mencionar apenas algumas. Embora tais mudanças não ocorram de um dia para o outro, nem dependam exclusivamente de nós, professores, é importantíssimo que estejamos conscientes de nossa parte no processo. Você está pronto?

Engaging and motivating students to keep them truly committed to learning

(Juliana Tavares)

Engaging and motivating students to learn, along with classroom management, is probably the biggest challenge teachers face today. How can we make our students actually enjoy what we teach and be engaged in the classroom? Moreover, how can our job make them motivated enough to learn on their own?

For starters, let us try to remember ourselves as students. If we stop to think about it, we will realize that we have many things in common with our students today, even though a lot has changed since we were in school. However, we always remember the subjects for which we had the best and the worst teachers. That is probably because what really draws our attention and gets us involved in learning is how meaningful what we are learning is to us. Does it “speak” to us in any way? How important is it to our lives? What are we going to do with it? How can we apply it to our lives?

The role of the teacher in engaging students and making the subject meaningful consists of, basically, enabling students to find the answers to these questions in what we teach them. When we are successful engaging students in what we teach, we can see their growing motivation day by day.

In order to do that, teachers themselves must be involved with what they are teaching. Otherwise, how are you going to make your students fall in love with something that does not do anything for you? We have selected some tips that can help you engage your students:

Student engagement happens through communication  
Students can sense when we are genuinely interested in they have to say, in what they like and do not like, in how they learn best. If I am able to show them I care, there is not much else that needs to be done. Listening is also the best way to truly get to know your students. Once this happens, you will be able to suit your classes to their profiles and make learning meaningful.

Student engagement depends on rapport 
In order to build rapport with your students, you must use your personality, sense of humor and charisma. None of this is easy unless you are genuinely willing to do it. Do not take for granted that students will be involved in your classes just because they have to. Give them reasons to do so. Rapport only happens when you are able to make a positive connection with your students, based on their feelings for you. It depends very much on honesty and openness, and it cannot be faked.

Student engagement depends on your own engagement 
As we said before, rapport leads to motivation. However, students can easily read your feelings, and they will be able to tell whether you are truly engaged in your classes or just there because they have to be. Therefore, finding passion in what to do is key to fostering motivation and engagement in your students. 
  
What do you think? What else would you add to this list? Do you feel you're engaging your students?
Take a look at more ideas here and talk to us!

Are teacher trainers really necessary?

(Louise Emma Potter)

When I first became a language teacher, in the 1980s, not much thought was put into the theory that underlies what it is to be or become a teacher. I was very intuitive, my students seemed to enjoy my classes, were very participative and, most important of all, they were learning the language. I was hard working and extremely committed to my job. At that time, I could not see the necessity of having a theoretical background for my classroom practice. I had the course book, I was creative, I spoke the language fluently, I planned my classes carefully. Intuition was my guidance.

Nearly 30 years have gone by.

Ironically, teacher training has become my life. If I had known then what I know now, I believe my students would have become much better learners and speakers of the foreign language they were attempting to learn.

As Russell and Munby (1991, p. 164) point out: “Ask any teacher or professor, ‘How did you learn to teach?’ As likely as not, the response will be ‘by teaching’ or ‘by experience’, and little more will follow, as though the answer were obvious and unproblematic. While there is an implicit acknowledgement that actions and performances can be learned through or by experience, there is little understanding of how this comes about.”
The premise that teaching ability is something innate is very mistaken. Some people are born to be teachers. We have all met someone who cannot be seen, other than inside a classroom. On the other hand, most of the teachers we encounter in our education system are ones who have a university degree in Education, have been teaching ever since, however, need help to make that jump from being an ordinary teacher to a great one.

Teaching can and should be taught. Not only during the university courses, but throughout the whole career. When teachers adventure out to teach their first class coming fresh out of their university courses, they are able to put into practice a little of what they learned and a lot of it they pick up on the job, from their own experience. After a few years, they learn how to pull the strings so that the students learn what they are supposed to learn in that year. However, after some time, teachers tend to settle down into a comfort zone of underestimating what our students are able to learn.

Teaching can and should be taught. Teaching is an extremely complex profession, dealing with many different skills that need to be mastered, not only by the knowledge of theories, but also by being guided through by trainers with pedagogical methods, self- assessment sessions, classroom observation, guidance and view. There is no such thing as a bad teacher. I would say there is a lack of interest by many schools who are neglecting their most important students: their teachers.

Teaching can and should be taught. As teachers, our main objective is not to teach students a certain content, but teach them how to learn that certain content. In order to do so, different aspects of teaching must be taken into consideration: pedagogical content knowledge, collaborative work, knowledge of multiple intelligences, classroom management, theories of teaching and learning, reflective teaching, feedback sessions and many more. How is a teacher able to do all this without guidance and training on a daily basis?

With the advent of technology, so much more can be done for our students, and even more for the teachers. To be a teacher means to never stop learning and it makes it so much easier if you have someone to guide you on this exciting path of constant research.

Are teacher trainers really necessary? Yes! Definetely. Big changes are needed in schools. Classroom observations with critical and constructive feedbacks, teachers with clear goals and procedures on how to reach that goal, teachers encouraging students to think critically, teachers with clear classroom management and instructional skills. We have a long way to go!

O “Inglês da escola” e o paradigma da insuficiência

(Juliana Tavares)

As frases listadas abaixo resumem o que mais comumente ouço quando converso com pais de alunos, próximos ou não, a respeito do aprendizado de inglês dentro das escolas da rede pública e particular:

“Quando ela ficar um pouco mais velha eu vou colocar no inglês porque o inglês da escola é muito fraco.”

“As crianças da turma dele são bem avançadas porque a maioria faz inglês fora.”

“Na escola não dá para aprender inglês, com aquela bagunça e aquele monte de aluno. Tem que colocar na escola de inglês mesmo.”

“Eles têm inglês, mas são duas aulas por semana. E a professora é muito fraca.”

Essas frases possuem algo em comum: todas elas refletem uma descrença no ensino de língua estrangeira nas escolas regulares. Já falamos aqui sobre os principais problemas que identificamos nas áreas de idiomas das escolas e não é nosso propósito negar a existência deles. Sabemos também que, para fazer de fato a diferença, o ensino de língua estrangeira deve ser muito bem fundamentado em formação contínua e busca por resultados.

Porém, se formos destrinchar essas frases com mais cuidado, identificamos um conjunto de crenças (ou descrenças) que formam o que vou chamar de paradigma da insuficiência: a ideia de que o inglês ensinado nas escolas nunca será bom o suficiente e precisa ser “reforçado” com a escola de idiomas. O problema com esse paradigma está no triste fato de que, não importa o que é feito na escola em prol da qualidade, ele parece perdurar com muito mais força. É como se o problema de qualidade no ensino fosse algo exclusivo das línguas estrangeiras, já que nunca ouvi ninguém dizer que vai colocar seu filho em uma “escola de história” porque a “história na escola é fraca”. Além de desqualificar o ensino de inglês, essas crenças também desqualificam o professor. Afinal de contas, se o inglês é fraco, de quem é a culpa?

Não se sabe dizer ao certo quando esse discurso começou a se espalhar, mas muita gente já pesquisou e escreveu sobre o assunto (veja referências interessantes aqui). De fato, grande parte dele foi construído devido à má qualidade do ensino em geral. Entretanto, creio que o ensino de inglês sofre um pouco mais com isso, porque saber um idioma já se configurou condição si ne qua non para a conquista do mercado de trabalho. Portanto, se “não se aprende” na escola, há de se aprender em algum lugar, pois sem inglês não se sobrevive no mercado (come se as demais disciplinas não fossem também essenciais em seu conjunto de habilidades!).

Isso nos leva a refletir um pouco mais a fundo sobre o real papel das línguas estrangeiras na escola. O que a maioria dos pais provavelmente desconhece é que a função dos idiomas na Educação é (ou ao menos deveria ser) muito mais complexa do que o proposto nas escolas de idiomas! Que dentro da escola devemos estabelecer diálogo com outras disciplinas, trabalhar com habilidades não-cognitivas, inserir a cultura dos países falantes da língua de maneira mais aprofundada, desenvolver o pensamento crítico, etc. Em outras palavras: ensinar uma língua não se resume a ensinar a falar uma língua. E é exatamente por isso que não se deve comparar o trabalho feito nas BOAS escolas de línguas com o trabalho desenvolvido dentro das escolas regulares. Ainda assim, é preciso melhorar muito o que é feito hoje. Porém, para melhorar, é preciso que haja valorização, tanto por parte dos pais, quanto por parte da própria escola como um todo (professores, direção e alunos). É preciso que a importância das línguas estrangeiras na escola pública e particular seja reconhecida, e que essas disciplinas obtenham o mesmo status das demais. Somente dessa forma poderemos caminhar rumo a um ensino de idiomas sério e de qualidade.