CRITICAL REFLECTIVE TEACHING/LEARNING: THE CASE OF THE UNKNOWN LANGUAGE

In the last 20 years the term reflection in teacher training is in vogue. Teacher trainees need to master their reflective and critical skills during their initial teaching practices to support professional learning and development. Reflective teaching is an educational and pedagogical approach essential to raise the awareness of their roles as teachers. Moreover, it is not only about thinking about teaching, it is also about the exploration of more critical underlying assumptions. An experiment was done at the University of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria in 2011 with 25 students studying the fourth and last year of their degree in English Language and Literature. These students were given 4 lessons in an unknown language. This article analyses the first lesson, exactly two questions randomly chosen (from their feedback session) and two diary entries. The main objective was to show the students that it is not necessary to use their mother tongue in order to follow and participate in a lesson. Likewise, to direct their attention to suitable strategies and approaches that should be used when teaching any foreign language. The students were overwhelmed with the experience, although some of them, exactly 6, used the words scared, confused and petrified, at the very beginning of the lesson. These first impressions of being shocked went immediately away, thanks to the communicative approach used by the teacher and more importantly all of them stated that they would use the very same strategies and methods. Moreover, they confirm that they learnt very much in only one hour.