Emilio Lara Espinoza reflects on their teaching practicum experience and what they learned about being a teacher. They gained valuable experience planning lessons, engaging with students and teachers, and understanding the responsibilities of a teacher. They recognize strengths like their outgoing personality and creativity, but also weaknesses in fully embracing their teacher role and managing time. To improve, they identify a need for more experience to strengthen abilities and address challenges as a new teacher.

1. MDD task 6
Emilio Lara Espinoza
Standard: The pre-service Teacher reflects about the understanding of the teaching role
and the values that support it. The pre-service Teacher recognizes the strenghts and
weaknesses and establishes priorities for the continuous profesional learning.
Task 1
Reflect on what you learnt during your practicum and how what you learnt led to a better
understanding of what being a Teacher is and the values that support the teaching field.
Identify your strengths and weaknesses to play that role and the needs of profesional
learning that emerge from them and your conceptualization of the teaching practise.
1. From this practicum experience, what did you learn about the teaching field? How did
this experience contribute to change or refine the understanding of being a Teacher?
When I started my practicum, back in a cold, foggy August morning, I did not think I was
prepared to be a Teacher since the previous teaching experiences I had had because of the
7 previous practicums were useless. In those semesters I only got to see a portion of what
being a Teacher represents once a week, for a few weeks and it was not enough. Hence,
the mere thought of starting the profesional teaching practicum terrified me.
Now that I am about to finish and after 4 non-stop months of constant work, classes,
feedback and paper work I can say that the professional practicum has been, by far, one of
the most enriching experiences I have had in my entire life. I was able to take an inside
look of what being a Teacher really is and quite closely, at a very good school with a very
understanding, patient and experienced guide teacher who was always by my side willing
to help me, explain me how the school worked and, when I started teaching, was always
interested in helping me as well as providing constructive feedback. I will no longer teach
lessons since December is all about exams, exams correction, analysis of the data given by
the exam results and planning time for next year yet those activities will still help me
greatly to get even more acquainted with the teaching world, its ups, its downs and what
lies for me as a newly-graduated teacher in the short run.
The number of academic experiences I have had in the previous months outpasses greatly
those of previous practicum experiences. During this four-month experience I learnt how
to cope with planning several classes in advance, creating interesting, appealing and
creative material to use during the classes. I am a friendly person, but during this period I
learnt how to get closer to both my Teachers and my students without jeopardising a
healthy, asimetrical relationship as it happened in previous practicums; consequently, I
learnt how to gently irrupt in the middle of a group of people who had been together for

2. years without been rejected. In the future, whichever school I work at, I will face the same
quest so it was quite useful to go through that experience now that I am still a student. I
also learnt to appreciate the work a student-teacher does because I am one and in my
opinion, some in-service teachers do not usually remember that they were once just like
me; so, acknowledging, respecting and valuing the work of a student-teacher is a lesson
for the future when I am the one in charge of guiding and helping another student, full of
dreams and fears just like I was in that cold, foggy August morning.
2. What values support your opinion about the work and the profesional role?
In my opinion, several values should be present in the life and work of a Teacher and a
school.
Responsibility
It is true, Teachers are very busy throughout most of the academic year. It is not only the
classes one teaches nor the amount of lesson one teaches in a week, but in-service
Teachers also have several kinds of meetings with all the Teachers, workshops, head
Teachers meetings, department meetings, seminars, talks with parents and even with
students; however, the more responsible a Teacher is, the more all the other agents
involved in the Teaching process will respect you. Being responsible is not only related to
showing up for work every morning, but checking tests and assignments in the alloted
time, having a clear perspective of your plannings so you do not run out of time,
considering if the activities you want to include in your lessons will live up to the
expectations of your students’ level of English and their opinions of one as Teacher and
being on time with all the paper work that may be tedious, but it has to get done whether
we like it or not.
Encouragement
Being a teenager has always been difficult and most of the times teeagers feel nobody
understands them. I was a teenager not so long ago so I still remember how it feels like
when a Teacher is not of one’s particular devotion. Therefore, still as a pre-service Teacher
I think the teaching field must provide the students with the necessary tools to believe in
themeselves. Instead of teaching them what to think we should teach them to think on
their own. Of course for those who want to, nobody can force anybody to do something,
let alone if it is for their personal benefit.
Devotion
It may be because I have never worked in my life, because I am just starting, or because I
have all these dreams of changing the world one deed at a time or because I only taught
10 lessons a week, but I think a Teacher must feel devotion for what he or she does. To
love what you do and to give 100% not only for your students, for you and your colleagues
as well.

3. Humour
Not a value per sei, but it will surely help to make the long and complex process of
learning a language funnier, more meaningful and closer. Although a helpful tool, it should
be handed gracefully and carefully so it does not get out of hand.
Class and grace
Again, not a value per sei, but by being classy and graceful students will actually value your
work and labor. As the saying goes, a good impression is only made once, so Teachers
should be fully conscious of what they represent to the students and parents: a beacon
that guides people towards an integral development before becoming adults. In my
opinion, classy and graceful Teachers will be most surely remembered fondly by many
students as actual models to look up to.
3. Which are your main strenghts and weaknesses to fulfill this rol?
In my opinion, my strenghts are:
My personality
One, if not the most important of my strenghts. Since an early age I have been involved in
drama clubs, choirs and other groups where I have had the chance to meet people,
develop my social skills and learn how to manage both large and small groups of people. I
do not fear making a fool of me, I am not scared of speaking in front of strangers let alone
people younger than me. I have a very good voice, a fair volume, I know how to work with
intonation patterns in both my mother tongue and in English; besides, I know how to use
humour to involve and engage the students.
In my opinion, an outgoing personality cannot be fashioned later in life, it is something
you are born with. Thankfully, I have one and I am glad I can use it in the world of
teaching.
Creativity
It might be because of my age or, as previously mentioned, my personality, but I consider
my classes to be fun, interesting, engaging, current and with the communicative twist the
teaching of English in Chile is in dire need of.
Level of English
The arguments stated above would not have any ground to stand on if they were not
accompanied by a level of English that allows a Teacher to actually be a model for the
students when learning the language. Bragging should not be present in an academic
portfolio, but I actually regard the level of English I have as one of the tools to teach
English appropriately and in a way which is balanced and closer to the students’ needs and
interests.

4. Regarding my weaknesses:
I still do not quite get that I am a Teacher
Most of the times I carried out activites, took decisions and faced problems thinking as a
student who happened to be teaching some lessons a week and that attitude
accompanied me throughout most of the practicum. My guide teacher was always keen
on telling me what I skipped regarding discipline and order inside the classroom and
during the lessons: several times I was not clear enough with the students that we were in
an English class, not Biology nor History; in this way, students felt quite free to do as they
wished in some lessons. Also the discipline was in certain occasions one of the downs in
some lessons since the students were speaking, but nothing related to the topic, or
cellphones; students are not even allowed to see what the time is let alone leave them on
their tables, but it happened in most of my classes. I think that happened because I still
take the students’ side in a certain way, because I remember how annoying this was when
I was a student, but nowadays I am a Teacher and if this situations do not bother me, they
bother the school authorities for sure.
Time management
The biggest problem in all my lessons was time management which might be related to my
little experience as a Teacher or my eagerness to make sure that every-single-one of the
students understood what I was talking about. It can also be related to the administrative
parts of what being a Teacher is, such as asking the students for their permission if they
were late or absent, calling the roll and answering random questions most of the times not
related to the topic. All the above mentioned had an impact in the appropriate and
planned start, development and closing of the classes.
4. Regarding professional learning, what needs do you identify taking into account the
strenghts and weaknesses detected and your conception of being a teacher?
In my opinion, what I need to foster my strenghts and overcome my weaknesses is
experience. It is true, I have all the energy to teach and to carry out fun activities with lots
of material, ideas and methodologies. Not that the energy a Teacher has at the beginning
is not important, but the experience of a few years combined with the energy one might
still have along the way are one powerful combination.
The practicum might have been an enriching, life-changing period in my life, as a person
and Teacher, but knowing what to do out of the academic experiences one has had would
be of greater importance not only for the Teacher, also for the students, the school and
the parents.