I have always considered learning a fascinating journey throughout which I continue to discover more interests that engage me, more people from diverse backgrounds with whom I can collaborate, and more experiences that challenge me to evolve as an “unfinished” (Freire, 2001, p. 66) human being. As a teacher I invite my students to design their own learning adventures so that they can explore new interests, discover new ways to learn, persist in transforming their incompleteness, and re-imagine themselves in a world of infinite possibilities where they can continue to build and re-construct more knowledge and more experiences. Through student-centered activities, I provide a liberating learning space where both students and I learn from each other, sharing ideas and experiences that create new knowledge. Because I teach culturally, linguistically, and racially diverse Spanish-speaking undergraduates in a language-advancement associate’s degree program, I allow my students to create a “transnational” (Canagarajah, 2017; Jong de, 2011) space to which they invite me to learn alongside, and with, them. Within this unique space, we adapt “our hopes and our abilities” to the twenty-first century’s rapidly paced, continuously evolving, and technologically driven, globally capitalist environment (Freire, 2001, p.7).

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Teaching is, and has always been, my passion. Without being an avid learner myself, I cannot be an effective teacher, nor can I truly be my own person. Simply stated, I was born to teach and learn as well as learn and teach. For me, teaching is an ongoing, infinite, reciprocative process through which teacher and student learn from each other. Together with my students, we create a safe, supportive learning space where we respect and appreciate each other’s diverse backgrounds as well as value each other’s knowledge, opinions and experiences. Within this context, I aim to balance my administrative duties with teaching responsibilities, advocating for my students at faculty development events, campus activities, and professional fora well as on college committees, working groups, task forces, etc. With regard to classroom activities, I strive to equalize structure with freedom, order with chaos, academic content with classroom management as well as “required” learning with enjoyment and laughs. With respect to my students, I purport to achieve harmony between cognitive development and communicative competencies, intellectual challenges and the acquisition of a wide gamut of necessary technological skills, self-awareness of the complexities of their individual transnational identities and their aspiring professional mobile identities, academic skills with marketable job skills, and, ultimately, personal concern as well as supporting social justice for all.

 

I present lessons that challenge students’ intellect, engaging them in inquiry-based and creative thinking. I encourage students to share their ideas in a variety of ways: whole class share discussions; posts in the online discussion boards; in pair share and small groups; individual consultations; serendipitous conversations on campus; phone calls; text and email messages. I invite students to ask provocative questions that disrupt hegemonic ideologies and to suggest social issues and important persons that can be added to the lessons, transforming the syllabus into authentic learning experiences for them. Because my students are bi-/multilingual in Spanish languages and their numerous language varieties, I encourage them to use their entire linguistic repertoire as a “resource” (Canagarajah, 2017, 2; Jong de, 2011, 153) and strategic learning tool, building “self-esteem” (Krashen, 2009, 30) and “self-efficacy” (Bandura, 1977, 5). As students discover and recognize that they can be academically successful, they begin to take risks in learning on their own, engaging in their own learning adventures. Through these experiences, my students can acquire the necessary “critical thinking tools” to understand how “institutions of power work to deny them equal treatment, access, and justice,” which is the learning process Freire coined conscientizacao, consciousness raising, and consientization (Freire, 2018, 17, 51).

 

In my lessons, I use a variety of teaching and learning tools, including films from YouTube and streaming databases as well as DVDs, post-its, paintings, images, comics, music, games, poems, song lyrics, etc. On low energy days, I include kinesthetic activities such as a gallery walk to hip-hop music where students stroll around the room, perusing their peers’ comments on post-its that are on the wall or board. On high energy days, I play soft, instrumental music which immediately brings calm to the room so that everyone can focus and concentrate. Whenever possible, I invite a guest speaker to talk about his or her culture, language(s), traditions, and experience in college and graduate school. Other times, I take my students to lectures given on campus that are relevant to the syllabus. In every class, humor helps to relieve everyone’s stress and anxiety. Exchanging quips and spinning yarns are fun activities that are informal, allowing everyone to participate genuinely and freely as well as experience successful learning and increase communicative competence.

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In teaching basic composition, I use a process-driven approach, scaffolding a variety of writing activities that lead to an essay. I, actively and explicitly, solicit ideas, questions, and vocabulary from students so that these are included in the assignment instructions as options. I emphasize the writing is a communication tool with which they can evaluate, assess, interpret, criticize, and transform the prevailing dominant hierarchical power structures in the world. I include readings and ask students to find more information that they can evaluate, critique, question and synthesize with their existing knowledge, ideas, and experiences. I challenge them to provide evidence that supports their stances on social issues. I maintain an open dialogue with students, listening to their concerns inside and outside of the classroom. I am available to assist them individually as well as in pairs or small groups, whichever approach makes them more comfortable. In my English composition classes, students create a transnational space, affording them opportunities to translanguage, interpret, and translate so that everyone advances in their English language skills with emphasis on composition writing, learns more academic content across interdisciplinary social sciences, and increases their repertoire of learning strategies.

 

As a culturally and linguistically diverse feminist pedagogue and a lifelong learner I strive to instill a curiosity for learning in my culturally, linguistically, and racially diverse Spanish-speaking undergraduates so that they can design their own learning adventures, becoming committed to their own education and using their own agency in education to transform society and aspire to attain social justice. Each semester, I see infinite possibilities in each of my students and I use my time with them to spark the fire of inquisitiveness and inquiry in them.

 

 

  References

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Bandura, A. (1997). Self-efficacy: The Exercise of Control. New York: W.H. Freeman.

 

Canagarajah, S.A. (2017). Introduction: The nexus of migration and language--The emergence of a

 

      disciplinary space. In The Handbook of Migration and Language. New York: Routledge

 

Freire, P. (2001). Pedagogy of Freedom: Ethics, Democracy, and Civic Courage. Lanham, MD: Rowman &

 

      Littlefield.

 

Freire, P. (2018). Pedagogy of the Oppressed: 50th Anniversary Edition. New York: Bloomsbury Academic.

 

Jong de, E.J. (2011). Foundations of Multilingualism in Education: From Principles to Practice.

 

       Philadelphia, PA: Caslon Publishing.

 

Krashen, S. (2009). Principles and Practice in Second Language Acquisition [PDF]. (internet ed.) Pergamon

 

        Press. Retrieved from: http://www.sdkrashen.com/content/books/principles_and_practice.pdf

 

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