One day last fall I viewed a recording of one of my lessons. And saw something scary. It reminded me of the questions: • Do you ever "sit on the other side of the teacher's desk"? • Are you surprised by what you find? Continuing professional development can take many forms, which include reading the professional and scholarly literature, discussing our classes with colleagues, or reflecting on teaching, perhaps through diaries or journals. Another approach is to watch other teachers' classes. We can attend seminars, or re-analyze our teaching aims, ideals, and beliefs. These generally accepted models of teacher development seem inadequate. Not bad, but incomplete. After all, we are TEACHERS, not mere scholars. We shouldn't be measured by what we know, but by how well our students learn. This requires a completely different perspective. How do we know what we do and how well we do? Lewis Carroll's approach may help us. By stepping "through the looking glass," we see thing! s not as we suppose them to be. Here we find that words, and ideas, may be interpreted in ways other than what have been supposed. I want to suggest that "the other side of the teacher's desk" has many of the same magical properties. How often do we examine our own classes from the learner perspective? What can a recording tell us? And what do we extrapolate from a viewing? How do Teacher Talking Time and Student Thinking Time fit in the Korean classroom? Are your learners comfortable with silence in the ...
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