Personal Narratives: Journal entry and critical incident

as strategies to reflect upon practices

Reflection upon actions may be considered as one of the most important means of learning from experience.  Regarding teaching, Tejada (2000, cited in Fernández, Elórtegui and Medina Pérez, 2003) argues about the necessity of developing reflection skills as well as accurate knowledge about the topic to be taught. But for what reason, in what way and where could this basic human action be put into practice?  Different researchers agree that by reflecting, teachers may take appropriate decisions based on watching and analyzing what happens in the classroom. Those decisions may range from discipline problems to learning strategies or interpersonal relations. 

 Therefore, future teachers are being encouraged to develop concepts about their specific disciplines and also skills, attitudes and values (Fernandez, Elórtegui & Medina Perez, 2003). It is worth to mention that not only teachers are expected to transmit information but also to guide students to discover meaning autonomously. In the classroom, a whole person with certain abilities that eventually will be used outside is being educated.

 Fernandez et al. (2003) propose critical incidents as structured instruments for presenting future teachers with real class situations which will be discussed in detail. In addition, possible causes and solutions to problems will be considered. Furthermore, Rahilly and Saroyan state (1997 cited in Pintos and Crimi, 2010) that the critical incident technique designed by Flanagan shows people meaningful experiences and may be used also as a means to get information  about the classroom and think about it. This contextualized technique seems to help teachers to identify problems, make a descriptive analysis of this conflict and come out with possible causes. Therefore, a solution may be worked out (Fernández, Elórtegui and Medina Pérez, 2003).

All in all, the Critical Incident Technique appears as a powerful strategy to integrate theory and practice, through a reflective analysis of classroom events. This work will depend on the specific area, the approach to view the problem and the teachers’ characteristics as group.

References

Fernández González, J., Elórtegui Escartín, N. & Medina Pérez, M. (2003). Los incidentes

     críticos en la formación y perfeccionamiento del profesorado de secundaria de ciencias de

     la naturaleza. Revista universitaria de Formación de Profesorado, 17- 001. Zaragoza,

     España: Universidad de Zaragoza. Retrieved August 2010, from

     http://redalyc.uaemex.mx/redalyc/src/inicio/ArtPdfRed.jsp?iCve=274 17107

Pintos, V. & Crimi, Y. Personal Narratives in Teaching retrieved September 2010 from

     http: //caece.campusuniversidad.com.ar/mode/resource/view.php.? id = 7214 

Critical incident: Getting to know each other in the language class

About five years ago, I was teaching a group of students of 8th year at Secondary School in the city where I live. Before starting classes, teachers usually attend meetings at the Foreign Languages Department. They are useful opportunities to get outstanding characteristics of the group as regards discipline and contents developed in the previous course, as all the teachers share experiences and opinions. Having this information in hand, we are expected to make a diagnosis of the group during one month so as to build our work plan for the year.

Unluckily, the information I got in that meeting was not very encouraging to me. I was going to teach to a group of students who failed the subject in a high percentage and fifty per cent of them were re-attending the course. In addition, they had had discipline problems such as fighting, breaking windows during the class or leaving the classroom without permission. 

My first class proved in a way what I had been informed about. To start, with they told me that they never worked, that they did not understand English and they did not want me to speak English in class. As a kind of non verbal welcome, one of them threw a piece of chalk to the board. However, I had to find out what they knew, what they had done in the previous course and their interests about the subject to plan my work for the year; and I had one month to get it done. So I tried to turn fear into courage and started to work.

During the following lessons, I greeted them and used simple classroom instructions in English and encouraged them to do so. I shared with them my personal information, showing photos of my family, friends, holidays, my favorite music, books, presents and simple issues such the food I like or the hobbies I practice. I also told them about my favorite music band and provided them with a song to work with. They were instructed to choose the activities they wanted to do: just listen to it, draw something, circle words they could recognize, complete the blanks, etc.

 Provided I was supposed to use English the whole class, I did it as much as possible, although many of them were reluctant to understand it. Whenever I considered it was necessary, I used Spanish and I told them to feel free to do so. It was me who did most of the talk during that time, but many of them listened to me or looked at my photos without saying dirty words or hitting each other. I also asked them about their personal information, praising them whenever they could use English.

 After six lessons I had to test my students, so I decided to use the same strategies that I had been applying in previous opportunities. For instance, they had to circle the information they knew about their teacher and after a model write a paragraph about themselves. They also had to say what they did not know from a list of topics and it was optional to circle the activities and topics they would like to work with along the year.

Finally, I could see that the group could really use English as they started saying good morning, Miss and sit down, please! They knew about me, what meant they had listened to me and many of them had decided to say what they would like to do. Undoubtedly their knowledge and skills about the foreign language was not exactly what was expected from them at this course. But I could see that my new students had achieved two important aims: use the language and see that their teacher was not so different to them. Above all, what was really delightful was that they had done it through English.