And so here is our final SIG Day speaker profile – Shireen Irziqat from Palestine. She will be speaking as part of our forum on reflection and its role in teacher development in Palestine…
The role of reflective practice in teacher development in Palestine
What’s your IATEFL session all about?
I have taught English for eleven years. After that, I was nominated to work as an acting education specialist in 2014 up to present. During these three years I have conducted various teacher development workshops, but the most important was the Certificate in Secondary English Language Teaching (CiSELT) Training which has been delivered to secondary teachers since 2015. In this IATEFL Forum I will be focusing on the role of reflective practice on the sustainability of the newly acquired teaching practices by using different stages of reflection. This starts by presenting a demonstration of an activity or strategy, enabling teachers to reflect on it and to evaluate it, personalizing the newly acquired activity by relating it to teachers’ contexts and used textbooks, and then to reflect on their classroom implementations and to suggest appropriate adaptations based on their reflections. This helps in engaging teachers in every stage which, to some extent, can lead to sustainable implementation of the new teaching practices.
Which teacher development book would you take with you if you were stuck on a desert island?
For me as a teacher and a teacher trainer, I will always refer back to CiSELT Modules (1, 2 & 3) as they provide a variety of teaching strategies and techniques to help teachers teach the four skills, grammar, error correction issues, lesson planning, teaching and learning theories and many other important teaching issues. They also make a good reference as they require reflection on every implemented activity which enables teachers to live the experience from both; learner’s perspective and teacher’s perspective.
What’s your favourite place to get teaching activities?
One of the most useful sources that I use is the British Council’s website www.teachingenglish.org.uk. It suggests tremendous classroom teaching activities and addresses crucial teaching and learning issues. I recommend it to all my colleagues.
What advice would you give to teachers thinking about their development?
Whenever to plan a lesson, contemplate it, put yourself in your learners’ shoes and then decide what activities to use and how your objectives can be better achieved. Show respect to your students’ feedback, reflect on your performance and make adaptations based on them both. That will definitely lead to a motivating teaching and learning environment.