Keshia Pearl H.

Velez BSE-English4B

Reflection Paper

(Classroom Seminar)

“Empty your cup.” – start all over again without dwelling in the past. The need for an
empty cup, is an open mind, it is the basis for everything. Yet, in so many of our lives when we
try to learn something new, we try to put things on top of things, never removing the true barriers
or leaving behind the behaviors that don’t work for us. A common example of how we put things
on top of things is bringing our past into the present moment and for that matter the future. We
base our listening or actions on the past, holding people as well as ourselves to a behavior or way
of being that might no longer be present.

Seminar-workshops were known to me as “dull and boring” because of the long hours of
just sitting and staying in one place while listening to the speakers. However, this semester we
took up a subject (ESL) which requires us to conduct seminar-workshops instead of the regular
classroom reporting. Part of me was excited since it will be another first to many of us in the
classroom to become speakers in a seminar-workshop, but another part of me was also anxious
since I do not listen to the speakers in most of the seminars I attended, I really have no idea on
what a speaker should do during the seminar-workshop. So during my classmates’ turn in
becoming speakers for the several workshops we attended, I listened and observed how they
delivered their topics and somehow got inspired by my classmates’ perseverance and how well
they managed to deliver their topics. Becoming the speaker in one of our ESL classroom seminar-
workshops was indeed a privilege and a blessing in disguise. By witnessing my classmates’
determination to deliver their topics well, and getting enough ideas on the techniques and strategies
I could use in delivering a topic, I can now say that although I still need more trainings, I know
that I am now ready to become a speaker.

I have learned a lot from this subject, not only about approaches, lesson plans and all the
school-stuff, but also, I have learned more about life. With a star like ma’am Estrella guiding us
throughout the course, I have learned so much and one of the things I will never forget even when
I become a teacher one day and retire from being a teacher because of old age someday – one thing
that will never be forgotten is to “empty my cup.” To empty my cup and give space to new
learnings. To empty my cup and focus on what is currently pouring in it. To empty my cup and
become a better individual, because it is only by emptying my cup that I become truly full – I
would have never learned this better from anyone else except Ma’am Estrella.