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WHAT KEEPS TEACHER S AND TRAINER S GOING?. Mercè Bernaus TrainEd Workshop 7-11 December 2004. TEACHER ’ S THOUGHTS.
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WHAT KEEPS TEACHERS AND TRAINERS GOING? Mercè Bernaus TrainEd Workshop 7-11 December 2004
TEACHER’S THOUGHTS Maintaining my enjoyment and passion for teaching for over 20 years can be attributed to several reasons, two of which include the love and respect I have for my students and my personal need to remain intellectually alive. However, the principal reason why I continue to enter the classroom with energy and a sense of hope lies in how I view what I do. Teaching is not just my profession; it is my calling; it is my mission. Nieto (2003: 128)
INDEX • Motivation and Attitudes Defined • Reasons for Action • What Motivated you to Become a Language Teacher Trainer?
What features may be related to these concepts? Motivation Attitudes
MOTIVATIONDEFINED • Gardner (1985), defines motivation as the combination of effort plus desire to achieve the goal plus favourable attitudes towards learning the language. • Dörnyei (2001) explains motivation as:The cause of behaviour – why people act and think as they do.
ATTITUDE DEFINED • An evaluative reaction to some referent or attitude object, inferred on the basis of the individual’s beliefs or opinions about the referent (Gardner, 1985). • A complex mental state involving beliefs, feelings, values and dispositions to act in certain ways.
REASONS FOR ACTION (extracted from the TrainEd questionnaires) • Need for approval • Need to belong • Need for self-actualisation • Valuing interaction • Valuing challenge • Valuing students’ gains • Valuing independence
REASONS FOR ACTION Need for approval • It helps greatly exchanging with colleagues and gaining peer support and/or approval. • Institutional recognition is also very important.
REASONS FOR ACTION Need to belong • Being part of an international professional community: conferences, exchanges … • Team work (the feeling of belonging to a group of colleagues and friends I can trust and rely on both professionally and personally).
REASONS FOR ACTION REASONS FOR ACTION Need for self-actualisation • La nécessité d’avancer continuellement du point de vue professionnel (pas de routine!). • To innovate regularly. • The problem is that when students call for reform from the classrooms, teachers are not eager to change.
REASONS FOR ACTION REASONS FOR ACTION Valuing interaction • Always enjoyed working in a group, helping others, interacting. • Establishing and maintaining contacts with partners. • Le contact avec d’autres enseignants et avec les étudiants. • Meeting the younger generation and discussing openly.
REASONS FOR ACTION REASONS FOR ACTION Valuing challenge • The possibility to move certain things, to be involved in a process of professional and personal development of myself and others. • The challenge and thrill in meeting so many people in so many different life situations.
REASONS FOR ACTION REASONS FOR ACTION Valuing students’ gains • Working with people and having the opportunity to see positive changes in learning attitudes and self-esteem issues. • To make the student teacher willing to know more, to research and try out more in his personal style.
REASONS FOR ACTION REASONS FOR ACTION Valuing independence • The freedom - I have the possibility to experiment various techniques and strategies in real context. • Freedom of research and teaching.
Summing up: questionnaire answers • Teachers’ beliefs, values and feelings, expressed in the questionnaire, prove teachers’ favourable attitudes toward their profession. • Teachers state different reasons for action, which confirm teachers’ motivation for their job.
What impact do teacher attitudes, motivation and beliefshave on students? ..
WHAT MOTIVATED YOU TO BECOME A LANGUAGE TEACHER/TEACHER TRAINER? • Tell your partner about a personal experience (if possible with a former teacher) that motivated you to become a language teacher/teacher trainer. • Extract some ideas from those experiences that helped you both in your professional development.
REFERENCES • Dörnyei, Z. (2001) Teaching and Researching Motivation. Cambridge: C.U.P. • Gardner, R. C. (1985) Social Psychology and Second Language Learning. London: Edward Arnold Publishers. • Nieto, S. (2003) What Keeps Teachers Going? NY:Teachers College Press, Columbia University.