Language teaching

I have been teaching English since the summer of 2008, and along the way I have learned quite a bit about how to teach from peers. Whether it be working in the classroom directly with another teacher, "comparing notes" with another one in the teacher's office, discussing what works/doesn't with another at the bar and/or reading published works about how-to teach from peers.

Quick note on that last point: reading something written by someone else is actually probably not an example of Paragogoy, that's more andragogical. If you read it and then contact the author and then start learning from one another that'd be Paragogical, and/or if you discuss said work about teaching with peers that'd be Paragogical. Reading alone as I did wasn't Paragogical, but it was an important foundation of what I think about language teaching and how I talked about it with peers.

1. Changing context as a decentered center.

I believe teaching English can be built from a logical and pedagogically sound base, which would most likely come from taking getting a Master's in the subject. I did not have that base, I started teaching with very little training and basically zero personal study of my own. That may sound reckless and irresponsible, but I was hired for the job and most of my fellow new teachers were in the same situation.

Given that, there was no option, but to co-create a learning context with my peers. With my fellow foreign teachers it was established when we'd get together socially, and inevitably stories/concerns from the classroom would arise. We'd talk these out and learn from one another. With the local Japanese teachers of English (JTEs) we learned together (with them leading) in the irregular meetings we'd have preparing for our classes and in the classroom itself.

2. Meta-learning as a font of knowledge.

The way I learned how to teach was trial by fire. I regularly took notes while teaching in Japan, but it wasn't till the next year in China that I made a post-class ritual of answering 3 questions: What did I do well? What could I have done better? and What did I learn?

That method was lifted from a article my father found about "Trading Journals" suggesting financial traders should keep a daily journal including those questions above. And that if they didn't have time to review that journal at the end of the week, they didn't have time to be a good trader (need to find the source for this).

Incorporating this into my teacher-research made me a far better teacher quicker. I still made mistakes all the time, but I feel I repeated them less than I do, say, in other areas of my life where I don't review as thoroughly. As weeks went by I was left with this long list of notes I would review before making that week's lesson plans and starting classes.

Continuing that to a peer context I regularly discussed with my colleagues about my classroom. I got incredible feedback from them on handling uninterested students, useful classroom materials and more. One thing I also learned was sometimes with peers its important what you _don't_ get feedback on. There are instances where even though you may be confused about something, bringing it up and talking it over with colleagues who aren't quite aware of the context 'cause you're not really explaining it perfectly, and because they may offer advice just to be nice even if its not something they've tried in their own classrooms ... at those times keeping your own counsel is likely best.

So, part of learning how to learn is who you can learn with and how you can learn with them and when its best not to include them.