Autobiography Analysis

DIRECTIONS: Make an analysis of your autobiography by focusing on your inner teaching beliefs, values, conceptualizations, thoughts, and actions. To the effect, you may consider answering any of the following questions:

What personal or schooling experiences can be considered to be the main sources of your pedagogical knowledge?

Do you think there is link between your previous experiences as a language learner and your understanding of teaching? How could you support your answer?

How would you define the knowledge-base you have developed throughout your language teacher education and development?

How do you think your understanding of the nature of language and learning has changed over the years?

What sort of social, cultural, and political forces have shaped your changing conceptions?

Which of those beliefs, values and understandings do you think fundamentally guide your teaching practice?

Could you identify any mismatch between the way you think and the way you act in your teaching?

Do you have any special plans for your future professional growth?


DIRECTIONS: Once you have analyzed your autobiography, visit five of your colleagues´ blogs,  make an interpretation of their autobiographies, and answer the following questions:

What commonalities and differences did you find in the participants´ knowledge-base, beliefs and experiences?

How could you explain the occurrence of those commonalities and differences?


REMARK: These tasks are expected to be done in your personal blog

ELT teacher´s knowledge base

DIRECTIONS:  Based on the reading of the selected papers about “ELT teacher´s knowledge base” (Cross, 2018; Freeman, 2018), post a reflective and critical comment in your personal blog about the ways ELT knowledge-base has been reconceptualized over the last decades, and the implications of these changing views for language teacher education and language teacher development programs in our country.

Guidelines for the autobiography

Write your educational autobiography by enhancing your growing up as language teachers with an account of the most crucial pre-service education and in-service development experiences you have had so far. Since your autobiography is expected to be built around the concept of teacher identity, make sure to reflect on those schooling incidences that have helped to shape your teaching self. To the effect, delve into the what, the how, and the why of your pedagogical beliefs and actions. Here you are some reflection questions you could consider taking into account for your autobiographical essay:

1. What language learning experiences have you had and how successful have they been?
2. From the teaching practices you have been exposed to throughout your language learning process, describe both the effective and ineffective ones.
3. How has your experience as a language learner influenced your decision of becoming a language teacher?
4. Have you had an inspiring English teacher who has positively encouraged you to become a different English teacher?
5. In what ways have your students contributed to your professional growth?