Kuma Ch. 1 and 2

Kuma starts off in chapter one describing the different roles of teachers.  The first are teachers as passive technicians which is when teachers are more concentrated on relaying the knowledge than actually teaching, using the knowledge that others have deemed worthy to transfer to generations of students.  He states that this "outlook inevitably leads to the dis empowerment of teachers whose classroom behavior is mostly confined to received knowledge rather than lived experience."  I feel as though this becomes a common trend in older "experienced" teachers.  Perhaps they started out with experimenting with theory and method, but eventually they become a drone of same-old same-old, tired and disempowered to change with changing times and changing classrooms.  The next role Kuma describes is the role of a reflective practitioner.  I find this to be an effective role in my teaching at the ELI.  We are supposed to write weekly reports reflecting on various aspects of the lesson, students, teaching.  I like how Kuma quotes that "anticipatory planning" is a role of a teacher.  He also says that "reflection-on-action can occur before and after a lesson."  I feel as though this is a helpful tool to go into the classroom with a changes you want to make to your teaching in advanced because that's when changes actually occur.  You cannot go into a classroom and just "wing it."  Somethings will work and some will not, and when they do not work analysis should be made on what caused that and which solutions to implement to avoid these in the future.  A couple characteristics of a reflective practitioner I really liked, they are aware of the "assumptions and values they bring to teaching" and are "attentive to the institutional and cultural contexts in which he or she teaches."  As much as good practice is important to understand, so is bad practice.  I think that it is human nature to use our past experience in our practice, whether it is good or bad experience or practice and that many teachers will teach as they have been taught, whether it was good practice or not.  Many of my education courses capitalize on this concept, asking students to recall things that occurred in our experiences as students to determine whether they were good or bad practices and whether to use them or not.  This is something that method neglects and postmethod recognizes.  Teachers have "tacit knowledge about teaching...by virtue of their lives as students."  When it comes to language learning, however, I feel as though I do not have that tacit knowledge as the postmethod suggests.  As much as I like to think that there is a relation between L2 learning among any age group, I never had the same experiences as a young ESL student trying to learn the common language of a country.  Although I have learned about the struggles of Culturally and Linguistically Diverse learners, and now am learning some of the best ways to teach them, will my not having a similar experiences as my students help or hinder their education?