DICTIONARY DEFINITIONS

Defining Professionalism

The term professionalism can be defined by enumerating some characteristics that a professional should possess. According to Banfi (1997, as cited in Pintos & Crimi, 2010, p. 28 ) “a professional should provide a social service, trust in “their intellectual skills” in order to offer that service, have had a “long period of specialized training” and be autonomous and involved in decision- making issues.”

As regards teaching, the term professionalism involves being reflective. “Reflection relates, directs and confronts ideas” (Marcelo, 1996; Day, 1994, as cited in Elortegui Escartin, Perez & Fernandez, 2003, p. 102).  Professional teachers should be able to reflect on their practices and, what is more important, they should encourage students to analyse their learning. By doing that, teachers promote what Banfi (1997) calls “professional growth”. According to the mentioned author, collaboration, updating and autonomy are the keys to make progress in the field (Pintos & Crimi, 2010, p. 29).

Considering professional development, Wallace (1991) specifies that being a professional implies showing a basis of scientific knowledge as well as having the ability to perform tasks in a competent manner (as cited in Pintos & Crimi , 2010, p. 28). Furthermore, he suggests three different models to describe how professionals develop: The Craft Model ( characterized by a specialist and an apprentice), The Applied Model (considering Thinkers and Doers) and The Reflective Model ( identified by received and experiential knowledge).

On the whole, professionalism is a quality that a person acquires through a continuous and autonomous process of learning and updating. As Banfi (1997) states “ Professional development comprises those activities in which professionals are engaged for the purpose of achieving professional competence” (cited in Pintos & Crimi, 2010, p. 28)

References

Pintos, V., & Crimi, Y. (2010). Unit 1: Building Up a Community of teachers and Prospective Researchers. Retrieved September 2010, from http://caece.campusuniversidad.com.ar/mod/resource/view.php?id=7214

Fernandez, Gonzalez, J., Elortegui Escartin, N., & Medina Perez, M. (2003). Los incidentes criticos en la formacion y perfeccionamiento del profesorado de secundaria de ciencias de la naturaleza. Revista Universitaria de Formación de Profesorado, 17-001. Zaragoza. España: Universidad de Zaragoza. Retrived September 2010, from http://redalyc.uaemex.mx/redalyc/src/inicio/ArtPdfRed.jsp?iCve=27417107

Finding a definition of a discourse community

According to Swales (1990) “a discourse community can be defined in terms of specific requirements such as common goals, participatory mechanisms, information exchange, community-specific genres, highly specialized terminology and high general level of expertise” (cited in Pintos & Crimi, 2010, p. 13).

Common goals refer to the objectives and interests that a group should share. This is related to the idea of membership. Swales (1990) considers that belonging to a discourse community implies giving testimony of such membership (as cited in Pintos and Crimi, 2010, p. 13).

As regards participatory mechanisms and information exhange, people in a discourse community should have the chance to participate and get feedback. Some members generally hold what Lave and Wenger (1991) call a peripheral participation because they are new members and acquire knowledge through their involvement in the group. (As cited in Pintos and Crimi, 2010, p. 14)

As far as specialized terminology and high general level of expertise are referred, a discourse community should achieve a certain level of knowledge and use proper language. According to Pintos and Crimi (2010) members should know about the genres and conventions of the discourse community they are part of.

As Flowerdew (2000) indicates, a discourse community is defined in terms of its members, who “function as scientists because they share language, beliefs, practices, education, goals, professional initiations and professional judgements” (as cited in Pintos and Crimi, 2010, p. 13).

 References

Pintos, V., & Crimi, Y. (2010). Unit 1: Building Up a Community of teachers and Prospective Researchers. Retrieved September 2010, from http://caece.campusuniversidad.com.ar/mod/resource/view.php?id=7214

PERSONAL NARRATIVES

Learning from a critical incident

The following report will outline a critical incident which ocurred in September 2009 in my 6^th year class at a private school. There were fourteen students in the group and, even though it was a private institution, most of them were from low social classes, as I was told in the diagnostic period. We had lessons three times a week and most of them seemed to be really enthusiastic and interested in learning a foreign language.

I was teaching family members and adjectives and students were expected to bring a photo and describe the people that were there. I started the lesson giving an example with my own photo. I clearly saw that students were eager to ask me questions about my family. However, I suddenly realized that one of the students, Lucia, was extremely nervous and tensioned. I asked her if she was fine but she told me she only felt tired. I could not understand her strange behaviour since she had never had any discipline problems up to that moment.

Although I decided to continue with the class, my attention was focused on her. After listening to me, students were supposed to provide their own descriptions. They took turns to talk and the atmosphere seemed to be relaxed. Nevertheless, when it was Lucia`s turn, she started to cry desperately. All her partners looked at her immediately because they did not understand what was happening. As I noticed that she was not feeling comfortable, I asked her to leave the classroom so we could talk privately.

At first, I let her cry and when she felt better she told me that her parents were divorced and she lived with her mother, who was  very ill at hospital at that moment. Lucia felt sad because the night before she had argued with her and had told her that she wanted to live with his father. But as we did the activity in class she had realised how important her mother was for her and felt sorry for their last conversation. I advised her to go to hospital after school and tell her mother those thoughts. After explaining her problem, Lucia felt better and wanted to go back to the classroom to give their partners, to whom she really felt respect, a proper explanation.

After the incident passed, many emotions were running through me. I felt overwhelmed by the situation and also concerned about what impact the incident might have on Lucia´s life. What is more, the situation made me and students aware of the influence social relations have on the learning process. Personally, I felt confident about the way I had handled the incident and now I believe it has had a positive impact on my career.

Lucia is an unreal name so as to preserve the student´s identity. .

PERSONAL NARRATIVES

Becoming better teachers

How can a good teacher be defined? How does teacher training influence teacher’s performance? Is a reflective analysis of classroom events a tool for improvement?

Authors such as Fernandez, Elortegui Escartin and Perez ( 2003) agree that critical incidents are used as strategies to solve problems spontaneously. According to them, teachers should be taught to reflect on their practices since “reflection relates, directs and confronts ideas” (Marcelo, 1996; Day, 1994 as cited in Fernandez, Elortegui Escartin and Perez, 2003). Furthermore, the writers agree that reflection not only allows an integration of theory and practice but also becomes the first step towards professional development.

As Fernandez, Escartin and Perez (2003) assume, teachers should know not only what to teach but how to teach. Similarly, Monereo ( 1999) agrees that teachers should be given the tools to cope with unexpected situations in the training process. As the proverb says, “Give someone a fish and you feed them for a day. Teach them how to fish and you feed them for life”.

References

Fernandez, Gonzalez, J., Elortegui Escartin, N., & Medina Perez, M. (2003). Los incidentes criticos en la formacion y perfeccionamiento del profesorado de secundaria de ciencias de la naturaleza. Revista Universitaria de Formación de Profesorado, 17-001. Zaragoza. España: Universidad de Zaragoza. Retrived September 2010, from http://redalyc.uaemex.mx/redalyc/src/inicio/ArtPdfRed.jsp?iCve=27417107

Analysing the meaning of a discourse community

Many researchers and theorists have provided a number of definitions of a discourse community. According to Swales (1990, as cited in Pintos and Crimi, 2010), a discourse community is defined in terms of the following requirements: common goals, participatory mechanisms, information exchange, community-specific genres, highly specialized terminology and high general level of expertise. The purpose of this paper is to show evidence on how different writers support Swales’ (1990) theory.

Hoffman-Kipp, Artiles and Lopez Torres (2003) show support on some of those characteristics. Teacher reflection is considered a social practice and several discourse communities emphasize how it serves political, pedagogical and phenomenological aims. Participatory mechanisms are believed to be essential when reflection takes place. As the authors state “reflection without participation is as impossible as thought without language” and “teachers function as resources for one another, providing each other with guidance and assistance on which to build new ideas”(p.4).

Kelly-Kleese (2004) also supports Swales’ (1990) theory when she provides a tentative definition of discourse community which includes many of the requirements established by Swales. She defines a discourse community  as a “group of people who share certain language-using practices...[that] can be seen as conventionalized”. (Bizzell, 1992, as cited in Kelly-Kleese, 2004, p. 2). The author also affirms that the community college can be considered a discourse community as its members share common aims, attitudes, values and understandings. Kelly-Kleese (2004) also supports another characteristic of Swales’ theory (1990): highly specialized terminology. The author proclaims that “the community college can be seen as adopting language that has been given particular meaning within the larger higher education community”(p. 2).

The importance of interactions in a discourse community is also reflected on the cohort-based program named by Wenzlaff and Wieseman (2004). According to them interactions promote meaningful learning as well as a sense of empowerment and, as the authors state, “empowerment within a discourse community is the key to teacher learning”(p. 9). Their program leads to the conclusion that teachers need teachers to grow with and the only way to enrich themselves is to work in groups sharing the same goals.

The authors previously mentioned agree with Swales’ (1990) theory when defining discourse communities. Furthermore, they mention and show evidence on  most of the requirements he establishes to define a discourse community.

References

Hoffman-Kipp, P., Artiles, A. J., & Lopez Torres, L. (2003). Beyond reflection: teacher learning as praxis. Theory into Practice. Retrieved October 2007, from http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0NQM/is_3_42/ai_108442653

Kelly-Kleese, C. (2001). Editor’s Choice: An Open Memo to Community College Faculty and Administrators. Community College Review. Retrieved October 2007, from

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0HCZ/is_1_29/ai_77481463

Kelly-Kleese, C. (2004). UCLA community college review: community college scholarship and discourse. Community College Review. Retrieved October 2007, from

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0HCZ/is_1_32/ai_n6361541