For this reflection, I’m delighted to welcome Jeremy Harmer. Jeremy is a teacher, teacher trainer, speaker, facilitator in the world of English as a Foreign Language. Among his books are The Practice of English Language Teaching, How to Teach English, & Essential Teacher Knowledge (all published by Pearson), Jeremy Harmer’s 50 Communicative Activities (published by Cambridge University Press & Assessment). His latest book is Being an English Teacher, published by Better Late Publishing.

I think all teachers, all people can make a choice. Be curious or don’t be curious. If you choose curiosity (I do) then you can go and find things, anything, because everything is interesting. And there are always people who know more than you do or who can do things that you can’t do.

So, when you can, ask them. They will usually be happy to help: the people who willingly shared their skill (all those years ago) at using powerpoint, or playing videos in demonstrations or how to engage a large audience or – most recently – how to publish your own material. Not only that but things keep changing and keeping up is, well, good fun if you are curious about it all.

What motivates me? Hoping I’ll find the answer even though that’s probably ridiculous!

Lots more prompts like this are found in A Reflection Journal For Teachers – available as a pdf or in print at taylormadeenglish.com/reflect.

Share your own reflections with your wider teaching community by sending them to me. Email me at t.made.english@gmail.com and I’ll share your responses to the prompts in this book.

Stay in touch with this reflection project at the places below:

theteacherjames.com
substack.com/@theteacherjames
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linkedin.com/in/theteacherjames
facebook.com/taylormadeenglishELT