MY BIODATA AND MY TEACHING PHILOSOPHY

MY BIODATA

This is my resumé

Resumean from Andrea Giordano

MY TEACHING PHILOSOPHY

When I was in kindergarten I used to see a group of students from primary and their teacher running and having fun. I talked to my mother but she didn’t listen to me. I also talked to this teacher and she told me that perhaps once in the primary I could be with her. Even though I was very shy one afternoon when the teacher was on duty at the entrance and my mother came to pick me up at 5 pm, I told both of them that I wanted to study with her. That is how I started learning English with Miss Norma. Since that moment I never stopped studying English.

When I finished secondary school, I was between English and Psychology. Unfortunately, I enrolled for the latter first and couldn’t do it for the former. But I started giving English classes in a very poor school in Santa Brígida, close to Moreno in Buenos Aires.

Since then I took up many courses, seminars, and special classes to deepen my knowledge and be better trained. Around 2007 I discovered TIC and my world changed. Not only because they let me spice up my classes but also because they collaborate in creating a stronger bond with my students.

I believe that teaching English is not only a profession but an art and a passion. At the same time, we need to know a lot about young learners, kids, teens, and adults as our horizon is very wide and we have the chance to address different audiences. I’m pretty sure that “outsiders” can’t understand the crazy bunch we are.

In 2017 I had the chance of starting training to become a certified teacher. It involves an enormous effort due to my personal situation (I work from 7 till 20:30 every day and have a son, a mother and a house to take care of) but nothing worth having comes easy.

I am convinced that education is the exit to our difficulties and having a solid background is one of the tools we as teachers need.  That is why I take different pieces from various authors to be like a magician in class and have the chance of solving situations on the spot. Beloglovsky and Daly (2015, p.9) sustain that knowing learning theories enable us to understand and make sense of children's behaviour that it allows us to make good and justified choices and let us reflect on our own teaching practices.

I am influenced by Piaget and his concepts of accommodation and assimilation as well as the importance of involving children in meaningful activities; Multiple Intelligences allow me to provide opportunities to all the children taking into account their capabilities. Bruner and his wonderful scaffolding so intensely used in our lesson plans this semester! To develop autonomy in children is a concept I used from the very beginning and one day I came across the one who spotted it: María Montessori! Pity on me! I wasn’t so brilliant! Jajaja

I feel blessed for working in what I love. Sometimes it is hard to teach a foreign language and things do not work as smoothly as I would like to but having challenges every class is a blessing not all the people have.