Final Reflections....One step closer to the world

Carolina:

I have many thoughts going on and on about this class in my mind, it was helpful, it was tiring, it was exciting, and it was dense at some parts, but it taught me a lot of ways to teach the same contents, it helped me to look for different resources and materials, and it has given me some insights into the kind of teacher that I am finally becoming.
I had some opportunities during the semester to put into practice a few things that I learnt, and though it was difficult at the beginning, once the students understand the aim, and how to develop the tasks it goes great.

I think that one of my strengths is that I am stubborn, now that the year is finally coming to an end, and I have had time to analyze how it went and what I did, I think that my stubbornness and perseverance, are what got me this far, is what keeps me fighting every day in order to finish my career and go around the world (travel) spreading what I know, and learning what I don´t.
One of my weaknesses is my "devotion" to do too many things at the same time, I do not know when to say no to a job, assignment or request of help, I simply go for it, and jungle with them, I do not know how I will do it, when I become a teacher, but I have one more year to figure that out.


Finally, our university, and the lives that we live, which are almost 100% related to technology and the Internet, gives us a whole set of online possibilities that even a decade ago where not even thinkable of happening. We can take classes online, we can shop, chat, date, travel, etc... through the internet, and as teacher we should totally use those elements and bring them into our classes (maybe not the dating part).
Lastly I want to add, that I am 100% sure of my capacities as a teacher, and despite the fact that I have a long road to way still, I am going to go with my head held up, welcoming whats new and trusting that what I have been working so hard to achieve is giving fruits, so I am going to enjoy it and keep moving forward, for as long as I live. It was a great experience, having had this class, thanks for the memories, have a great summer.

Raúl:

For me, this class has been a roller-coaster ride. It is not because the semester was short, and we had to rush all the contents, or because we had a lot of things to do. I believe that this class was a roller-coaster because we covered a lot of different topics, a lot of different activites, and it still feels like it was well connected. Even from before starting the EFL teaching programme, I always thought about how I was going to do my classes, to teach my classes, once I had finished the programme, because I literally had no idea. I knew I wanted to be a teacher, but I did not know how I was gonna be one. Throughout the courses, I could somehow visualise this idea of how to teach a class, but even the method classes fell short in some ways. This class in particular, was more enlightening, more down to earth.

We covered a myriad of activities throughout this course, that I would use too much space if I were to describe them all. They were interesting, they were useful, they changed the way I saw some aspects of language teaching, and finally they pointed me towards the direction I want to follow as a teacher.

Having said that. I still feel that this course lacked some things, or that it could have covered more ground. I believe we could have seen some theory behind material making, or how to assess material, And I definitely think that should have had a couple of classes on adapting material from different sources. I know we covered that a little bit with all the activities we made, but it would have been better if we had focused on that topic for a couple of sessions.

Overall, this was a very useful and enlightening class. Thank you very much.