Journal 4

In this session of the seminar, I learned about the characteristics of the ideal English language teacher. Essentially, the ideal foreign language teachers’ role might be characterized by her intercultural competence, innovation, risking attitudes, and a critical view on teaching. 

I read a very interesting text which essentially focused on the ways to start reshaping the teachers’ role to meet society’s demands. This was not something new for me, since in other courses from my degree I have learned and read about it. 

One of the ways is teachers' need to develop intercultural competence: in this case, is important to set the difference of intercultural communication and intercultural awareness; they both are important when talking about interculturality. This interculturality is important because it empowers language teachers to communicate and understand students’ realities better.The second way is teachers as innovators: it essentially emphasizes that teachers should break the traditional rules, and create new teaching alternatives according to students' contexts, needs, and interests. This was also focused on the importance of the students centered-approach which means that it should have a directional and cooperative knowledge construction that challenge traditional models of authority between teachers and students.  And the third way is teachers must acquire critical visions to observe and detect opportunities for change: this essentially means that being critical is being able to adjust new strategies that permit the expansion of knowledge naturally rather than accumulating prescriptive steps and formulas.

Finally, I want to share two quotes that called my attention from the reading:

“They see education in the context of the general society and posit students as social agents to be able to transform it”. (Hinchey, 2004).

"Make language enables students to express what they feel and think about what they live". (Halliday, 1985 cited in Kumaravadivelu, 2003).

These two quotes represent my goal as a language teacher, I just want students to see the language as a means to understand and talk about different subjects and topics, to use the language to express what they feel, and to have the opportunity to choose what they want to learn and how they want to do it, thus I want to be a social agent promoter.

Glossary:

Intercultural communication: Each individual can mediate to avoid misleading communication.

Intercultural awareness: Understand cultural schemata, taking account of individuality without disregarding the other’s identity and culture.

Ideational language: it needs to cover the students' different dimensions such as political, social, and cultural. 

Social agent: Someone who is able to understand different topics and issues in order to transform them and become them better.