lunes, 25 de febrero de 2013

A Holistic Pedagogy in the Classroom

The Holistic approach I’m developing, which is based on my professional experience and observance, on my studies and research as well as on my intuition, seeks to find a way to enhance the best and most useful aspects and strategies of all the current pedagogical approaches and theories that offer a horizontal way to approach the learner. It is in this way, a sintergetical approach.

I believe in seeing persons as wholes. A student is  a person and every aspect of that person -mental, physical, emotional, spiritual -is present in the classroom and must be taken into account in the interactions teacher -students / students-knowledge.
I believe a class should cater for all needs. I believe the teacher's role is to unleash all students' potential skills. I believe in transmitting known ways of learning while respecting each individual student's personal way of learning. 
I believe in offering opportunities for all students to explore the knowledge while obtaining various tools and strategies that suit their own ways. A class should be an adventure. An adventure where all students find their interest while receiving the chance to raise curiosity, develop creativity, and feel at ease to take risks.
I believe in NLP, Multiple Intelligences, Emotional Intelligence, Brain Gym, Meditation, among others as strategies available to succeed in such adventure.
It is my opinion that a plan of the lesson should be as flexible as students there are in a classroom. Not chaotic, but flexible. This flexibility should maintain a mainstream marked by the contents the students need to acquire according to the aim of the course, while allowing for variations selected out of the students' needs and interests. 
I believe evaluation and assessment should be made in formal as well as in informal ways. More often and relevant, in the evaluation of acquisition of a language as a means of communication should, of course, be the latter. Evaluation and assessment should not only guide the teacher's work but also, and most importantly raise the student's self-esteem, provide them with a useful feedback which in itself encourages and  allows the student to set new goals.
All students have a right to know where they're standing. All students have a right to receive opportunities to discover, become aware of, and unleash all their potentiality. 
Last but not least, all students and teachers have a right to learn in harmony, without unnecessary external pressures, living the teaching-learning process from their heart, from their right as well as left brain hemisphere, making the best out of one of the richest interactions in human relationships.

Michèle Schäfer 



domingo, 24 de febrero de 2013

BLISS, A Holistic School of English


El próximo 18 de marzo, 

BLISS abrirá sus puertas en Martínez !!!
English for Children, 
English for Teens,
English for Adults
and for Teachers-to-be


Por consultas, horarios, aranceles: 
eurekamichele@gmail.com