Since I am officially on maternity leave, I have time to reflect on my teaching and what my believes are about learning. Therefore I have decided to take part in the 30 Goals challenge for educators organised by the fantastic Shelly Terrell. Throughout the months of January, February, March, and April, I will try to accomplish one to two goals a week. The goals are designed to get me and other educators around the world to believe my/their plans of action will lead to positive change in my/their environments. Because, I do not teach at the present, I will not be able to accomplish the goals where students are involved but I do think this will be a positive thing for me personally. I have now been teaching for ten years or so and I have never really had time to reflect on my practice, apart from when I was a NQT (Newly Qualified Teacher) and I had to report weekly to my mentor. It will also be good for my CV. Remember that one of my professional goals this year is to update my CV. Well, this challenge will help me write an attractive CV and also letter of motivation.

So the first challenge is to create a Me Manifesto where I should share "what makes me tick. What I do believe about learning and what kind of ideals I do carry in my classroom."

I thought I would tell you my manifesto through a story. I chose Storybird which is a wonderful tool to tell little stories. However the biggest drawback is that you cannot embed your story. You can only share it with friends via emails. That is why I decided to use a screen capture tool Screenr and to tell you my story:

If you want to read the story only, go to the Storybird website.

And here is a little explanation of my manifesto:
I have always loved teaching and my brother and sister will tell you that when I was a child, I didn't play with dolls or any other girly toys. I played the teacher! And my lovely sister would always play the good student in my class!
Why do I love teaching? Because it involves real people, real emotions and real experiences. Because every day is never the same and is a new challenge, a chance to try something new. Because although it is very hard some days, there is always such a sense of achievement at the end of the day. I do really enjoy watching pupils language improvements, watching that they actually start to enjoy understanding and speaking a new language.

What are my ideals? A friendly and team atmosphere in the class: pupils wanting to learn something completely different and pupils supporting each other. In terms of teaching a new language, I want my students to be able to adapt to new situations, new ways of thinking, new cultures which is a key skill to have in everyday life. I want them to get to improve their own first language by finding similarities with the new language. Ultimately I want them to acquire "another brain". I have been trained to become a teacher but I now would like to change into a kind of mentor/tutor. By that I mean that I would like to deliver more personalised learning where each student is treated as a different learner. I am reading a lot of very interesting stuff about it at the moment (especially KevinMclaughlin's blog) and I want to draw a plan of action to be able to teach a new language to each student individually.

What about you? Why do you love teaching and what are your ideals?