The document summarizes several papers on teaching methodology. It discusses concepts like communicative competence, the characteristics of novice and experienced teachers, action research methods for the classroom, different types of professionals, and strategies for introducing innovations. Several authors propose that teachers should focus on lifelong learning, conduct their own research in the classroom, and view themselves as both teachers and learners. The document also reflects on the importance of teacher competence, skills, knowledge, qualities, and maintaining an attitude of professionalism.

1. Methodology II
“Reaction paper”
Name: Nataly Muñoz
Professor: Roxana Correa

2. Summary:
Pettis (2002) highlights the fact that she is a teacher and also a learner because learning
English is a course of action that continues the whole life so you are learning new things
constantly; she also refers to her development of professional competence as a process. The
author calls herself as a multifaceted educator due to the fact that an educator plays too
many roles. The author takes the definition of other authors when defining the term
communicative competence as the ability to communicate and comprehend information
across cultural dimensions and linguistic. Keeping in mind this concept Pettis (2002) says
that observational characteristics every teacher should have are: the competence of the
educator, the knowledge held by the educator and finally the educator´s skills. On the
contrary, Brown (2007) says that a good teacher must have four abilities which are:
technical knowledge, pedagogical skills, interpersonal skills and personal qualities.
Pettis (2002) also refer to two kinds of teachers: novice teachers and experienced teachers.
Novice teachers focus on what-to-teach questions, whereas, experiences teachers focus on
how to teach and why to do it. No matter the kind of teacher we are we all have to be
professional responsible and this should be noticed when making decisions, when
considering or reconsidering teaching´s principles; in addition to this it is our personal
responsibility to look for information, to learn more, to be aware of our students „needs etc,
in order to be able to develop ourselves and more important to transmit our knowledge in
the most appropriate and complete way.
Taylor (2002) proposes a kind of guide in which she explains how to research on your own
classroom; also she explains her own experience with her own classroom. It is an issue of
matter how teachers care about their classrooms, since how students sit down or how do
they work better. The author asks if these points should be important, if it is a matter of
concern for some teachers or if they actually care about this and notice patterns in the way
students „work. Taylor (2002) says that the learning strategies that every student uses define
how they are going to work. It is important to look for extra information or share ideas with
colleagues. It is fine if you prefer to work in groups or alone, but it seems easier to work in
small groups.
The concept of action research it is present in the papers of Brown (2007) and Pettis (2002).
In the case of Taylor (2002) she presents some stages on how to do research on a classroom
focusing primarily on the information you decided to read about; nevertheless, in this stage
we might encounter a problem. The majority of the research is made by people from
outside, who do not know about the specific reality of every classroom. The author
provides an example on how to do research in a classroom; also, she suggests forming
small- group interaction compared with the typical class interpreted by the teacher. Ann,
the teacher who conducted the research with her class, realized that her class was very
teacher oriented and that students saw the role of the teacher as the one who provides the

3. knowledge and the students were just the recipients. She realizes that it will be beneficial
for students to interact with each other. After that it is important to collect the proper
information, and then tape it in order to analyze the information. The research shows the
importance of knowing how our students work in their classrooms to make the teacher able
to help them to know how they process the information better.
Ur (2002) provides the key concept “professional” and defines it as a person who has
extensive studies, practical experience generally university-based. On the other hand, she
refers to the term “professionalism” as a group of people who possess specific skills and
knowledge that the common people do not have. Lay population is the opposite of
professionalism, because it refers to a group of people who do not belong to a specified
professional group. Also, Ur makes the difference between professionalism and amateur.
Professionalism, as previously stated, refers to prepare oneself to do a competent job with
the necessary skills and knowledge; while, an amateur is someone who likes to do
something just for fun but is does not mean that he is qualified to do the task. In addition to
this the author refers to the term technician. A technician is a person who has specific skills
to do a task and its skills are perfected over time. Here the author gives the examples of a
native English speaker who is a technician because he managed with the language but he
does not have specific courses on knowledge and thoughts. Another term named by the
author is academic, who is immediately under the term of professionalism, refers to a
person who make research and writes. In addition to this, the author clarifies that even
when professionalism is not the same as academic, the two have one major similarity, and
both are evaluated by how they will contributive to future generations. Finally, Ur states the
importance of our professionalism as English teachers; therefore, we should keep in mind
our responsibility in our field, our importance to communicate new ideas, our role as
teachers and learners at the same time, our personal responsibility to teach and share our
knowledge with new teachers, etc. This is not reached yet but as the author mentions things
will change little by little.
Hayes (2000) shows a research in which he examines the experience of a teacher in Sri
Lanka which aim is to improve the disadvantages of the cascade method. Innovation is a
model which is a complex phenomenon which needs to be carefully managed. Hayes
affirms that it is not enough to know what teachers do that affects learning; moreover, it is
necessary to know how and why this occurs. In his paper the author mentions different
strategies to introduce innovation with the cascade method. First of all training conducted
in many level by trainers; nevertheless, this has a disadvantage because the training can be
diluted, this means that every time the information is given less and less is understood due
to the fact that every time a person retells something the message change over time. This
problem was an issue of matter in the research so the intention was to reduce it introducing
a strong cascade system in which the responsibilities are not centralized and the capacity to
self-regulated the whole process. To carry out this process the training process was

4. reflective at every level of the cascade, and having the experience of the training was an
important factor. The materials should be carefully prepared and consulted by the trainer;
otherwise, it would lose strength as the cascade progresses. According to Hayes, all this
parameters should lead to a successful cascade training program.
According to Brown (2007) teachers are not only the ones who give information to students
but also they are learners, because you never stop learning. The authors Taylor (2002) and
Brown (2007) agree that it is important to be up-dated about any current issue that involves
teaching. It is important to keep in mind every problem a teacher might encounter it makes
teachers learn a bit more about everything. In order to continue to grow as a teacher you
need to set realistic goals: set priorities, take risks, practice principles of the stress
management and do not try to do everything it is important to set times (weeks, months,
etc) and trying to do whatever is human possible, not everything. Do not expect to become
the best teacher in the world in one day you can do better little by little so it is necessary to
be patient.
The author mentions some characteristic that every good language teacher should have
which are: technical knowledge (knowing the language), pedagogical skills (how to transfer
the knowledge to the students), interpersonal skills (how I communicate with other
teachers, parents, janitors, etc) and finally personal qualities (if you are responsible or not,
it refers to your value as a teacher). Brown (2007) proposes an action research in which
first of all you need to identify the problem, then it is crucial to read a lot, to make a serious
research and finally with all the proper information about the problem you can apply your
solutions. Brown (2002) remains us that we are agent for change, because we have all the
necessary tools to make that change which is part of our responsibility as professionals.

5. Evaluation:
In the paper Pettis (2002) refuses to the idea of that for example if we are going to teach
Math in first grade in a primary school we should only have the necessary knowledge to
teach them. I agree with Pettis ´opinion, because we cannot call ourselves teachers if we
just know a specific amount of knowledge about a certain area. It is our responsibility to
have all the necessary studies to know everything about our specific area, because we can
not only know more than a student and call ourselves professionals. We have to possess the
knowledge and at the same time we have to possess the necessary skills to teach; otherwise,
we could not be called ourselves professionals.
The author also says that “there is no place for professional complacency in the field of
adult ESL instruction” and I agree with this statement because as the author says in her
paper it is of our particular concern the quality of education we are giving to our students,
we need to be professionals, look for information every time is necessary because we need
to keep in mind that we are teachers and also learners; moreover, we need to believe in
ourselves and our knowledge, we as preserve teachers needs to believe in our expertise, not
only doctors, lawyers and engineers are professionals, we are professionals too but we need
to behave like one. There are many things that we can do to improve as teachers, we always
have to try to do something even if it is little by little because every little step makes a
difference, it is important to be happy with the maximum not with the minimum.
Taylor (2002) mention steps on how to make a research on a classroom and she gives
the idea that teachers should do action research. Action research consists of collect
information about a specific course. In this case the research was conducted in a small
group of students and it went alright. If we look this research we can find that it is not to
difficult to follow and the steps are very clearly explained. As a pre-server teacher I had
have the opportunity to be in many classrooms in my progressive practices. This year, from
the beginning of the semester I have been taking my progressive practices in the same high
school. As a result, I am able to recognize if Taylor´s research it is possible to do it in a
common high school in Chile. First of all, I must say that my high school is a public school,
so there are thirty five students in a tiny classroom. The majority of the students are from a
low social background, the high school does not have the necessary implementations as
DATA, computers inside the classroom, etc, for example any time a teacher wants to use an
audio in the classroom as part of a class they need to ask for a radio and if any other course
is using the radio the teacher can do what he/she originally wanted to do with the class so
he/she has to change the activity of the lesson. I think it is possible to make a research like
the one previously said but it would take a lot of effort to complete it. Teacher should have
complete disposition to this and I must say that according to what I have seen in my
progressive practices the teachers I have talk to do not have the time and patient to do a
research of this big.

6. On the other hand, I must confess that the students I have seen of the high school do
not have a good disposition, in fact they are not very motivated and they hardly want to be
in classes and practically they do not work on it. I really believe that an action research can
be done but teachers and students need to have the willingness to help and to do the
necessary to have successful results. Schools should have extra hours of English as a room
workshop; teachers should plan activities and separate students in small groups in order to
work better. In order to have good results teachers should plan interesting activities
according to the student‟s ´likes in that way students will feel motivated to learn. I really
think that everything starts with the teacher´s attitude because I believe that when students
see motivated teachers they motivate themselves too. It all starts with us as professionals.
Ur (2002) introduces many concepts to refer to people who are experts on something,
people who only do something as a hobby, etc. In these categories we can find the term
professionalism which is a person who possesses skills and knowledge of a specific
expertise. According to the author the main problem is that we do not behave as
professionals and in this point I have to admit that I agree with the author.
Primarily, when I decided what I wanted to study after finishing high school people used to
ask me what I wanted to study and every time I told them that I wanted to study English
pedagogy they were staring at me like if English pedagogy were the worst major to study. I
have to say that my parents always supported me and I really appreciate this, but the rest of
the people look pedagogy as an easier major, they think that you are going to study
pedagogy because your PSU score was too low and you were not able to study medicine or
engineering. It is like people could not understand that some people can choose to study
pedagogy by personal choice. Together with this, we have to assume that we do not try to
change this either. Teachers are equally important as doctor, lawyers and engineers, all of
them are professionals, so why do we see teachers as if their work were less important than
the other professionals? Society makes us believe that teachers are inferior in comparison to
the rest of the professionals and the worst part is that we believe what society says.
We need to scream to the world how important our work is. We teach people, we always
learn something new because in the field of education every time things are changing, we
share knowledge with others and apart from all this we still have personal issues that we
have to avoid for a while when we enter to the classroom and play the role of an actor like
nothing has happen before, so we should ask ourselves, how do doctors would learn how
to be doctors without teachers? How do engineers would learn how to be engineers without
teachers? Or how do lawyers would learn how to be lawyers? No matter what people say
as long as we complete our work the best we can we will start to behave as the professional
that we are. We need to be proud of our work of our beautiful work, in that way the rest of
the people will be proud of us.

7. Hayes (2000) show us how to improve a method called cascade effect which he ensures it
shows good results. I was very curious about this method because I have never heard of it
before and I found it very particular. Nevertheless, I must confess I am not complete sure of
its effectiveness even when the author describes good results after following some steps.
For me it seems like a waste of time to train people and after this the trained people has the
work of teaching to other people and so on. I really think that the original message will
change complete when passing individual by individual and at the end the original message
will be so mixed up that the aim of the method would not be able to be completed
successfully. Besides, if we thing about it, the people who receives the message first will
have more accurate information and the last ones who received the message will have
wrong information or at least not as complete as the ones who received the information
first.
I strongly believe it would be easier to train people to teach groups of people at the same
time because this allows the learner to ask any possible doubt they might encounter. Also,
face to face classes are much more effective because the teacher can control the students
and also students have the advantages of having the teacher in front of them. The cascade
method might work for some people but not to everybody; this method does not cover all
the different learning strategies students have so we can not expect all learners will learn.
The teacher should be able to provide to every student the knowledge according to the
students´needs and this includes all kind of material (visual aids, recordings, flashcards,
realia, etc) which will help students to develop their abilities a bit more and also to learn in
a successful way.
Brown (2007) mentions many point I think are crucial to the field of teaching. I think the
concepts provided by Brown about the good language teacher are exactly the attributes
good ESL teachers should have. The first term is the competence preparation leading to a
degree in TESL, this term refers to background knowledge the professional should have
because not everybody can teach. A love of the English language which I think It is not to
difficult to find in pre-server teachers, the majority of us started to study this major mainly
because of the English language. In my particular case I like languages in general, it caught
my attention when a language is so different than my mother tongue which is Spanish. I
loved English language since I were a teenager girl, every time I used to listen music in
English I tried to pronounce the words that in those times were impossible to pronounce
form me. Critical thinking allow us to be able to think more than what we see, it allow us to
try new things or to retry something again. Critical thinking makes us to realize if we did
something wrong and to correct that mistake. The persistent urge to upgrade oneself,
because we continue learning every day and it is an issue of matter to look for information
when necessary.
Another important point is feeling of excitement about one´s work. I think this point is
something that teachers do not tend to care about because not tall teachers make research

8. and also because even when they do any kind of work like preparing the material for a class
or perhaps planning a unit for the whole semester. I, as a pre-server teacher, have observed
that teacher do not feel excitement for their work, and I think that this due to the fact that
teacher take for granted that they have to produce something and that their work it is not so
important because it is our work. Teachers must treat themselves with the appropriate
importance that teachers deserve, because it all begins with a change of mind and then
doing something to change this.

9. References:
Brown, H. (2007).Teaching reading. Teaching by principles: an interactive approach to
language pedagogy. Ed: second edition. p 426-478
Hayes, D. (2000). Cascade training and teachers' professional development.ELT
journal, 54(2), 135-145.
Pettis, J. (2002). Developing our professional competence: Some reflections.Methodology
in language teaching: An anthology of current practice, 393-396.
Taylor, E. (2002). Research in your own Classroom. Methodology in language teaching,
397-403.
Ur, P. (2002). The English teacher as professional. Methodology in language teaching: an
anthology of current practice, 388.