I’ve been always thinking that school practice is the very first opportunity for students to check up what they have already learned and are able to do. But it turned out to be a wrong, misleading thought. To get a precise and profound understanding of what should be done and taught at school you need to evaluate your results way before you are actually standing in front of the class. What I really learned being at school as a language teacher is that you definitely need to acquire explanatory skills. Another thing is that you need to think in advance. Let me put it this way. When I was preparing an extracurriculum activity for my students, I spent almost a day singling out the most engaging and encouraging types and forms of work. I had to come up with certain sorts of tasks, work out direct instructions and make all the necessary material distributed to the members of the study-group. What I practically missed is that I needed to be sure the pupils would come! More than that, it was a huge mistake to think that the children would understand everything on the spot. I didn’t prepare lots of explanations and didn’t reason some instruction out. The general impression one might have got from the activity (that was actually a quiz) is that as if I hadn’t prepared it properly at all.
So the basic conclusion I managed to draw out of the two periods of school practice is that you should analyse your future actions. It could be called something like a pre-action analysis. To my mind, this is one of the fundamental features of globally oriented education which enables you to deliver effective lessons at school. Now I’m speaking of such a phenomenon as the discrepancy between the qualities of educator and the requirements made at school learners. Teachers themselves must be globally educated. They have to encompass all the vital qualities of modern educators: critical self-evaluation, accurate planning, defining the scope of work that should be done, clear understanding of the mission of global education.
I can’t say the schools where I had teaching experience fit with the concept of “the school of the future”. The work is mostly done in a out-of-date way, the methods used in class are incompatible with the outcome we should obtain. Yes, I’m criticizing school without suggesting anything that can improve the situation but I’m not sure the matters are beyond repair. Start with yourself and then set your demands, that’s what I’m thinking about all the time.
