MY POTENTIAL AS A TEACHER

MY POTENTIAL AS A TEACHER Although becoming a teacher has never been my dream, I have always had that urge to share what I know. In the beginning, teaching, especially language teaching, looked like focusing on content, forms, and structures, as directed by a fixed curriculum which must be accomplished to meet some institutional and statutory objectives, aims, and goals. But over the years, my thinking has matured with practices, and experiences of both successes and failures. They were motivated by a strong belief that needed to be passed onto the learners, but this time, to achieve a more laudable goal, that of molding mindsets and personalities; This is the source of my passion and enthusiasm for teaching. This is the core component of my potential as a teacher. I cannot count how many times I thought of quitting, but I am still there. I am convinced that even if I finally quit, I will still be attached by a string to the teaching profession. During one of our courses in the first semester of this year, I learned that the number of teachers quitting the teaching profession is increasing, and more and more intend to quit sooner or later. For example, according to the latest poll of the National Education Union, 44% of England's state-school teachers are planning to quit by 2027, and 22% intend to leave within two years. This information is important to understand that only teachers with a genuine passion or calling for teaching are likely to stay back, despite all the odds, because they are enthusiastic about the subject they want to teach, and can adapt to any conditions. With all humility, this is my feeling about myself as a teacher. One more thing I discovered about my potential is my ability to communicate with my students. This involves verbal, listening, and written communication skills, and the capacity to explain complex concepts in a clear and concise manner. I identified diagramming as one communication strategy that one of my teachers explained was very effective in teaching and that I was already using out of intuition, to explain historical events for example. I use it with kids as well as adult learners. In fact, just yesterday, one of my adult students strongly recommended I become a sort of coach to motivate others, just because of how she feels each time we meet. Other attributes that constitute my potential as a teacher are my patience and empathy. Encountering students with different learning abilities and backgrounds is an inevitable fact. So being psychologically prepared, I am able to anticipate possible solutions for foreseeable problems and improvise instant or temporal solutions for unforeseen problems. Each situation is always a basis for reflection for a relatively definite solution. For example, for one of the kids who was always disturbing my 45-minute lessons, I decided to give him some responsibilities in class to be sharing working tools. He got more responsible and recently, he was doing his work task better I praise him all the time, taking pictures to show my excitement, and now he is the one calling me to see his work, and asking me to take pictures. I would admit I almost lost my patience with him and wanted to ask his parent not to bring him again. But today, I am very proud to see his progress. The final points I must mention about my teaching potential are my Creativity in using teaching methods and adaptation to different learning styles. I like to try different teaching strategies to engage my students and enhance their learning experience. I even seek the opinion of my teachers and peers to get more ideas to improve on them. I am the type of teacher who can design a lesson plan weeks in advance and change it at the last minute or even in the course of teaching simply because a brilliant idea just sprang up! However, this tendency exhausts me a lot. It is something I still struggle with. To conclude, I would say teaching is a dynamic field, and becoming an outstanding teacher is a process of continuous learning to stay abreast of current development in education, and to strengthen all of the skills mentioned above, and which constitute my potential as a teacher. Reference: National Education Union, April 2022, State of Education: the Profession State of Education: The Profession | NEU