My #MATLUPB201820 experience

How I learnt to own my teaching strategies.
TGI(D)F = Thanks God It’s (Demo) Friday! #TheMATLUPBChronicles

Hey there! My name is Valeria Torres, I just finished 5th semester of English and Spanish Teaching degree at UPB, and I am here to tell you about one of my subjects from this semester. The class’ name is Methods and Approaches for Teaching Languages, and the aspect I highlight the most about this class with Professor Mora this semester is Demo Fridays. We have heard of many ideas for engaging students to our class along these five semesters but, carrying out those divergent ideas in our classroom and with the teacher’s company made those strategies meaningful and allowed us to choose which one fits better, and which ones we need to create to improve our performance as teachers.

The teacher clearly knows what he is doing and makes us grasp what we have to do and why we should do it do, and the class reflects that knowledge. The class is apparently very glad for his manner of teaching as well, because he emphasizes on important thing. He has mastered substantiating between what is relevant and not so relevant, and what we need to hear. All of that makes it easier for us students to embrace key aspects from the class that we consider will be useful. If we were going to go deeper in evaluating the subject, I would like to mention the teacher has a very nice way to express in a manner to extent his discourse from just spoken language to body language, by doing this he can appeal every individual student in a more fashionable manner. And it is also important to note that the teacher is quite good at using his past practical experience from his field of work to enforce the theoretical topics.

Now talking specifically about the Demo Fridays, it is important to highlight that they were not simple fun games, because they really taught me that I can make my classes interesting by using many resources and turn learning into a fun thing to do. For example, there were many activities that I learnt in Demo Fridays and I could use with my students, and I saw they were new experiences for them to enjoy. Learning how to use music, videos, texts, tales and other resources in the classroom in a way that engages students, that teach them, not just about a language, but about a culture, and that enhances their critical thinking by putting them face to face with someone else’s opinion, so they define their own opinion and support it with arguments.

There is no better way to learn something than by practicing it, and that is the main reason my favorite classes were Demo Fridays. I learnt many strategies I could use depending on the kind of students I am working with, and it served as an invitation to think of my own strategies, resources and activities to engage students and teach them meaningful knowledge!

Thank you, Professor Mora. It was amazing.

Valeria Torres.