Saturday 28 May 2011

Learning from my colleagues

A while back I wrote a post about learning from my learners.  Yesterday, I was lucky to have a colleague assisting in the classroom, and I found it very interesting to learn from her.

I had a student struggling with a particular aspect of their course (English skills).  Having spent some time with him already, I was finding it difficult to explain it any other way, so I asked my colleague to help.  After a little thought, she explained the subject completely differently to the way I had been doing it.  She was extremely patient with the learner, getting him to think about the subject in a way that was more meaningful to him, rather than looking at it in an abstract manner.

It made me reflect on how I had approached the subject, and gave me ideas on how I could do it differently next time.


My final thoughts?  That teaching is not easy - it takes a considerable amount of effort, creativity and skill - and that we, as teachers, must never be complacent about our work, but rather that we should take every opportunity to expand our own thinking and share good practice.

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