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1. UNIVERSIDAD CATOLICA DE LA SSMA. CONCEPCION
PROFFESIONAL DEVELOPMENT INTERVIEW
DIDACTICA DEL INGLES II
FACULTAD DE EDUCACION
PEDAGOGIA MEDIA EN INGLES
BY
JUAN CANCINO
NIDIA GIL
ESTEFANY MILANCA
ANA LUNA
TEACHER
ASTRID GUERRA
DATE
Nov 28th, 2012

2. 2
Table of Contents
Table of contents……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………2
Introduction ............................................................................................................................. 3
Theoretical Framework ......................................................................................................... 4-6
Description of the interviewee and data collection ……………………………………….…… ………………….6-11
Analysis ………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….12-16
Conclusion…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..17-18
References…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..19

3. 3
INTRODUCTION
“The teacher is the ultimate key to educational change and school
improvement” (Hargreaves and Fullan, 1992). As Hargreaves and Fullan said,
teachers are a fundamental key in order to improve education; regarding this, that
is why is important to have knowledge about professional development as future
teachers. For instance, to be a teacher is not only to implement the curriculum in
our classes, but also to adapt it to our learners’ needs, in order to be more
understandable and manageable for them to be learnt; moreover, we must not
only have knowledge about our subject matter, in our case English, but also must
be developed our knowledge of pedagogy and methodology. Different aspects of
professional development according to different authors will be covered, but our
main goal i n this work is to analyze deeply Matt Sinclair’s professional
development, an UCSC literature teacher.

4. Theoretical Framework or the theoretical background on professional
development in the teaching of English as a foreign language and classroom
4
research
Regarding professional development in teaching English as a foreign
language and classroom research, there are several authors that help us
understand deeply the concepts and features that involve this topic which is highly
relevant for us as teachers to be.
Concerning developing our professional competence, Joanne Pettis
declared three important points. The first one, according to Pettis has relation with
principles, knowledge, and skills. She points out that these three elements have to
work together when comes to develop our profession, what is not just to have the
ability to teach, also requires a balance of the elements mentioned earlier. The
second point is related to changing needs, because novice and experienced
teachers have different needs. Regarding this point, it is compulsory that teachers
have to discover what they need to teach. The third and last point is connected
with personal commitment. Pettis mentioned that it is our responsibility to be
updated with new techniques and material that could help us as teachers.
Elizabeth Taylor developed research in your classroom. She mentioned in
the paper her concern about working in groups or individually, and most of her
observations are presented with question-answer format. According to Taylor
(2002) everyone can do a research, she also mentioned that it can be collaborative
or individual which will depend on your context. Moreover, Taylor presented an
example of a teacher that was concerned about her lessons that seemed to be

5. very teacher-directed. The findings associated with the research in her own class
let her to be able to see that in groups there is more interaction; nonetheless, she
also found some negative aspects. Finally what is presented by Taylor is that
5
everyone can do a research with a purpose to solve specific problems.
It is important to know what a professional is, and it’s related to this, Ur
states that a professional is someone whose work involves performing a certain
function with some degree of expertise. To have a better understanding of what
means to be a professional, Ur compares the term professional with amateur, lay,
technician and academic. Lay is a person that does not have knowledge about a
particular subject and a professional is someone who possesses certain
knowledge about the field. Amateur is someone who does things for fun, on the
other hand, a professional is someone who prepares oneself to do the job.
Technician is someone who performs a certain activity with skill and a professional
is someone that does not just acquire a skill but also someone who takes
courses. Finally an academic is someone who is focused on thinking and
researching, on the other hand the professional is primarily occupied in real time
action in order to improve action.
Brown in continuing your teacher education states that a great thing about
teaching is that you never stop learning. He also suggested four roles to apply in
our early stage of teaching such as setting realistic goals, setting priorities, taking
risks and practicing principles of stress management; moreover, Brown makes a
list of some characteristics of a good ESL teacher. He declared that one of the
difficulties and scary things about teaching, is classroom observation and research,
because we tend to fall into the routine of the class. Furthermore, it is important to

6. point out in Brown research the term teacher collaboration, because teaching is
6
changing rapidly and it is compulsory to work with others in order to stay updated.
Description of interviewee and data collection
Interviewee: Matt Sinclair
Profession: Literature teacher at UCSC.
The person we chose is Matt Sinclair, whose nationality is Australian; he is not
actually a teacher, because his undergraduate studies are nursing, and his
postgraduates studies are writing in literature. Even though he is not a teacher, he
knows a lot about literature and writing, so he teaches literature and extensive
reading, not only in the in the new program of the English teaching major at UCSC,
but also in the old one. We made an interview that consisted of 14 questions
aiming to the professional development of his career as a teacher from UCSC, and
the interview lasted 6 minutes with 39 seconds.

7. 7
Results: A transcription of the interview.
Interviewer: Why did you choose you major?
Interviewee: I'm not actually a teacher , my undergraduate studies are nursing and
international studies and my postgraduates studies are writing in literature and I
chose them because I like the literature but I particularly chose it because of the
writing area of creative writing, that answer your question ?
Importance he/she gives to his/her professional development
Interviewer: How important is professional development for you?
Interviewee: I think that professional development is the realization that nobody is
perfectly prepared, people who are not interested in perfection development tend
to end up repeating the same thing over and over again, with not critical reflection
about it and that is a problem, and that is why I think professional development is
yes, what a pity.
Interviewer: What have you done to promote your professional competence?
Interviewee: Well In my area there is very little that you can do in a structured
way, most of what I do is self-tutoring I supposed, when I need to teach something
that I haven’t taught before or in the process of just updating what I am doing then I
am looking at researching, it is fairly self-directed but it is very constant.
Interviewer: How can you best continue to grow professionally?
Interviewee: I think by continually doing new things rather than just doing the
same things in the same way, I guess in sort of point where you have to go and do

8. something which is quite different to you have done before, this has been in the
last few years with the extensive reading with the new study plan but I think that
8
the period is finishing then I’ll find a different perspective doing new things.
Interviewer: You as a teacher, have you been doing the best you can do?
Interviewee: You never have that feeling actually from time to time it seems that
things work very well but it is actually fairly unusual and you are never completely
happy with what you have done because inevitably might be better. Whether you
have done the best you can or not is very subjective
Interviewer: Have you ever had any failures? What do you learn from them?
Interviewee: Most failures for literature teachers are about using texts which end
up being quite inappropriate for students so the learning from the failure is the
process of making a criteria for the selection of texts literature more appropriate,
and so they have been many failures, some my fault others some other as a
consequence of texts selected by other people. So now when I select the text I use
very different criteria to what I did initially consequence of a lot of application of
different theory and look understanding what students would actually read when
they read for fun
Importance he/she gives to studying abroad
Interviewer: Is studying abroad important for you? What do you think are the
advantages of doing it?
Interviewee: I think is good to see things from another academic perspective and it
doesn’t matter what level you are studyi ng i n Chile or in any country teachers tend

9. to reproduce what they have learnt and you get things in a very traditional way and
so if you go somewhere else and you have a different perspective then allows you
to be more critical with your original perspective, whether there is in an English
speaking country or not depends on your linguistic competence, for Chilean
9
teachers studying in an English speaking country is a good thing.
Activities that contribute to professional development
Interviewer: Which of the following aspects contributes the most to your
professional development? Teaching journals, materials development,
feedback from colleagues, learner feedback or seminars and workshops.
Interviewee: Development of materials certainly because that’s the kind of the
thought process in a more complex way, feedback from colleagues is what
happens less just because this is fairly small university and there are not lot of
teachers teaching literature, learner feedback is certainly very important, seminars
and workshops there are not very many and they tend to be interesting.
Relevance of professional development
Interviewer: Is professional development relevant for you? If it is yes, in what
ways?
Interviewee: It is certainly just because if we do things like we have done we are
not get anywhere I think it is fairly obvious that university programs are not as
effective as they should be and professional development is one way of critiquing

10. what is happening to get better results. You can actually see in the change
between the two study plans I think that the new study plan reflects this
10
development over time.
Professional development at UCSC
Interviewer: How important is your working environment at UCSC in terms of
promoting your professional growth?
Interviewee: Well I don’t have a contract I do not have a great deal of stability
either the institution doesn’t contribute anything, or that’s a problem.
Interviewer: Has your teaching approach changed over time?
Interviewee: My approach has changed enormously I think it’s human nature,
initially when you start teaching you tend to follow much more things you have
been instructed by other people and that time regrets you have more opportunities
to developing your own programs and things like that and I have been able to do
that.
Interviewer: Have your needs and interests remained the same or changed
over the years?
Interviewee: They have changed from being a fairly general language teacher to
being specialized in children literature and literature for young adults.
Interviewer: Do you prefer working alone or with others?
Interviewee: I don’t have a lot of choices i n these things, i n the new study plan I
work kind of in a team but it tends for more administrative purposes, from time to

11. time I work with a colleague but then we are both very busy and we never seem be
11
as coordinators as we would like to be, I’m flexible I don’t mind.
Interviewer: Do you prefer to work under supervision or on your own?
Interviewee: I don't mind working at the supervision but it is very unusual for me to
find a boss from my area. I like the idea of people actually observing me and giving
me feedback but it never happens. I quite like worki ng in teams but it’s not
necessarily practical so is good to have somebody to talk thi ngs through... It’s not
necessarily to do everything in the same way I have had the experience of
working in places where everything is given to me and I just have to follow what
they say and I hate that I think that is not actually teaching is just robotics so I
prefer in that sense to plan what I’m doing and doi ng in my own way but then I
quite like sharing.. With people to have two different perspectives, that interesting
too.
.

12. 12
Analysis
Matt explains that professional development is one way of critiquing what he
has been doing in order to get better results. As Pettis (2002) states it is
compulsory that teacher have to discover what they need to teach, according to
this, teachers need to be critical when comes to talk about professional
development, because things are never perfect and as Pettis also mentioned it is
our responsibility to be updated with new techniques and material that could help
us . In this way, we must be updated in new methodologies and strategies in order
to change things, with the purpose to become closer to the perfection in what we
do.
When we asked Matt about the importance about his professional
development, he says that it is an important part to improve not only his
professional skills but also his knowledge about his field; otherwise he will end up
repeating the same things over and over again, as he says while he was
interviewed. According to Pettis (2002), concerning developing our professional
competence, there are three important points to take into account, principles,
knowledge, and skills. She points out that these three elements have to work
together when comes to develop our profession, what is not just to have the ability,
to teach requires a balance of these three elements. For this reason, it is important
the connection between these three elements, otherwise teachers would tend to
do the same all the time without i nnovation, that’s why most of the time students
end up with low marks due to the lack of motivation, regarding this Matt highlight
that we need to call the students’ attention all the time. It has been noticed with

13. Matt’s answers that for him is really important to be updated as well as tryi ng to do
new things in order to grow professionally. He not only tries to be innovative, but
also he uses an strategy called self-tutoring that consists in learning about specific
things when he has to teach some things he has never taught before. In that sense
he feels more prepared to confront their students with updated knowledge and
13
materials about the topics they have to cover.
While he is talking about his performance as a teacher, he explains that he
always tries to do his best at the moment of teaching and helping students, but he
is never completely satisfied, because he thinks that he could have done it better,
and that is what all teachers and future teachers need to bear in mind because we
cannot be satisfied with what we do in our jobs, we always have to ask or work to
be better at what we do.
Matt is very careful when comes to choose a text to be read by the students,
and failures have taught him that needs to be selective when he chooses a book,
because they have to be appropriate for student’s needs and interests, the point
that Matt addressed in that answer is really important because according to Taylor
(2002) is really important when teachers know how their students work and what
they interests are.
When comes to talk about studying abroad Matt replies something very
interesting that has to do with acquiring a new perspective to see things, and they
explains that if you study abroad you will become more cri tical to the old
perspective, so you can compare and contrast both perspectives with the purpose
of making up a better perspective to work with, and become professionally better,

14. this should be taken into account because Brown (2001) further explains that when
teachers continue studying, it provides them a list of goals that a teacher should
accomplish in order to become competent, such as the ability to reach their
maximum potential through a series of steps including setting realistic goals with
learners, setting priorities, taking risks and knowing how to manage effectively the
14
stress provoked by teaching.
At the moment he talks about his job at UCSC, he first explains that he
doesn’t have a contract, and it is an disadvantage for his stability because as he
says he does not have a great deal of stability in the university, so in that sense he
feels uncomfortable and his professional development cannot reach a higher level.
All the time that Matt have worked, the approach he has been used have
changed over time, because he explains that at the beginning when he started to
work he followed more instructions from other people, and he regrets not having
followed his own interests in order to produce his own material, approaches or
programs to make his process of teaching better, but now he has been able to do it
because teachers need to change their methodologies while they are teaching,
they need to innovate, make use of different approaches, try out new things in
order to make the teaching-learning process more productive. Changing
methodologies and finding new strategies for teaching is really important because
according to Pettis (2002) teachers are in a continuous process of learning and it is
extremely positive since it involves the development of their professional
competences for a better quality of teaching.

15. He as a teacher has changed as well, because in their answers he says that
he started as a general language teacher, and now he is a specialized teacher not
only in literature for chi ldren, but also i n literature for young adults. So he hasn’t
been stacked in one position, he has improved and has one specialization, and
that is what professional development is, not be pleased by little, teacher always
15
have to think how to become better professionals, as Matt has been doing it.
Referring to how matt likes to work, he says that would like to work in groups
but he doesn’t have the opportunity because the university is fairly small, and there
are not more literature teacher to work with, he says that has the opportunity with
the new plan of the English teaching program to work cooperatively with a
colleague, but they just work together in administrative staff, not academically.
However maybe it is not a big problem, because according to Taylor (2002)
everyone can do a research and this can be collaborative or individual which will
depend on the context.
Feedback is always need in order to see things from other perspectives and
improve what we do. In the case of Matt he does not have the opportunity to do it,
but we have and need to have the instances in which we can work cooperatively,
to achieve goals, and develop our professions i n the best way. Matt doesn’t mi nd
working under supervision, even though he never has somebody supervising him,
it is very unusual, but he likes the idea of somebody observing him and giving him
feedback, but he says it never happens, as we mentioned before teachers need to
work cooperatively, in order to give and receive feedback from colleagues, share
materials, resources and ideas, and so on, that’s why Brown states that teacher
collaboration has a significant importance because teaching is changing rapidly

16. and it is compulsory to work with others in order to stay updated. Moreover, Matt
also mentioned some experiences that he had in some workplaces, he told us
about working in places where everything was planned beforehand, and he just
had to act as a robot, without changing or adapting anything, but also he told us
than now he has the opportunity to innovate in the classroom, try new things
out, to plan what he is doing and doing in his own way, so for a teacher is really
important freedom in what he or she does, in order to try new things out, to use
different things in order to see which is the best to make use of and so on.Finally is
important to mention that Brown makes a list of some characteristics of a good
ESL teacher, and he declared that one of the difficulties and scary things about
teaching, is classroom observation and research, because we tend to fall into the
16
routine of the class.

17. 17
CONCLUSION
As a conclusion, regarding what we have analyzed, we could say that it is
really important to be constantly studying, especially if your are a teacher, a
professional in the field of education, who is an agent of change, according to
Brown (2011). As we know, education is a field that is constantly changing, due to
the fact teachers should be updated in order to provide different strategies and
techniques that suit the students’ needs, so teachers must be i n constant traini ng
and testing themselves with the purpose to be better professionals.
We based our analysis on different authors, for instance, Regarding Brown
(2011) and Ur (2002), we totally agree with their point of view to promote a
constant process of learning in professionals. Furthermore, from our perspective, it
is necessary to be ensure that we are updated not only in terms of our subject
which is English, but also in terms of methodology, the strategies and techniques
we use with our students should be updated, and appropriate in order to not teach
the same content using a repetitive sequence of activities and tasks that become
inefficient over time.
Secondly, another idea that is pointed out by the authors is the collaborative
work. At the moment of analyzing this perspective that Brown mentioned, we
consider it relevant because no matter if you are an experienced or a beginner in
the educational area, there are always issues with our lessons, strategies or
materials that require an improvement. We totally agree that these issues would
not be corrected without the comments or feedback from our colleagues. Feedback

18. received from another professional always will be a suitable way to improve our
18
weaknesses and reinforce our strengths.
We strongly believe that being teacher is an important work not only for
teaching students and help them to develop their skills, but also for modeling future
professionals within our society. As it was mentioned before, we totally agree with
Brown’s idea that teachers are agents for world changes. From very earlier, we are
involved and we grow together with teachers, who have encouraged us to being
the future professionals that we are. Even though, as English students, we have
experienced in our pedagogical practices that the hardest part of being teacher is
to change the underrated perspective of Chilean society from our work. People use
to underestimate the challenging work behind teaching, they do not know what
involves teach and the dedication that educators deliver everyday to do their best.
Finally, we consider that everyday we are learning new things that help us to grow
professionally, and we expect that in a future, not so far, people and our social
system recognize our work as its deserve.

19. 19
References
Brown, H., San Francisco, U. S. (2001). “Teaching by principles and international
approach to language pedagogy”.
Hayes, D. (2000) cascade traini ng and teachers’ professional development. ELT
journal, 54/2.
Pettis, J. (2002 ). Developing our professional competence: some reflections.
Taylor, E. (2002). Research in your own classroom.
Ur, P. (2002). The English teacher as professional.