Teacher Thinking

TEACHER THINKING is closely related to both classroom management and to the teaching-learning process itself. As the words themselves tell us, teacher thinking may have to do with what teachers think in relation with approaches, material, activities, content, techniques, personal style and with what they believe about the process in general.

Burden and Williams (1997:48-9) have this to say about teacher beliefs:

…One of the many facets that teachers bring to the teaching-learning process is a view of what education is all about, and this belief, will influence their actions in the classroom…

This being said, teacher thinking will definitely affect teacher’s practices and choices.

But, what is it that makes us do certain things in the classroom the way we do them? Several areas such as the way we were taught, our beliefs, beliefs about learners and the affective climate, among others, have been identified as of key importance when shaping our teaching.

I strongly believe that past teachers and past experiences are the elements that influence the most the way we teach, mainly when we start teaching.

Should we follow our ex teachers’ lead? Would this affect our own teaching style?

Well, I think that if we had inspirational teachers, teachers who we admired, we will be more likely doomed to imitation.

I personally think it is not a bad habit. However, we need to understand the importance of having a unique style. We are all different and we all have something different to offer. We need to be

prepared to show this to our students, to the world. We, as teachers, cannot follow every single repeated step. We need to have a personality, a brand, a style, a voice.

How can teachers acquire a style? Well, with the passing of time, with some reflection on personal practices, ideas, likes and on effective language acquisition in general.

More often than not, beliefs about anything are formed at an early stage in life and thus, we, humans, tend to show a lot of resistance to change. However, after gaining some experience we are normally more open to change.

From personal experience, I believe motivation is key to successful SLA.

When thinking about the way we will manage our classes, we teachers, need to consider motivation (extrinsic/ intrinsic), student’s interests and needs and the way we will maintain engagement.

Extrinsic motivation is a motivation to learn caused by external pressures such as work, because a parent has sent a learner to class, or the need to gain a qualification in the language. It contrasts with intrinsic motivation, which is an internal force such as interest in learning a language to communicate with other people or for further personal development in general. British Council webpage, Extrinsic | TeachingEnglish | British Council | BBC

In this context, our beliefs about learners, the way they learn and the overall affective climate will be of key importance, as mentioned above, when defining our teacher thinking. Although the concept of teacher thinking is relatively new, I believe it will be further investigated in the

near future since I reckon it is one of the most important factors in language acquisition. We teachers can have a significant impact on our student’s lives.