LEARNING JOURNAL WEEK 1

In this very first week we learn about or professional development when we graduate for
the licenciatura. I learned in the class. I learned that our professional development as
teachers can give us many opportunities to improve in our profession after we graduate
from college. The knowledge base for teaching is constantly changing but for us as
bilingual teachers, teaching is a process that takes place over time and our formal training
(courses, specializations, master's degree among others) can be complemented with our
individual skills and create our professional profile . After going through formal education
comes the part where we have to be more committed to our career and is our teacher
development, this autonomous development which we as teachers continue our process
individually looking for alternatives to not lose our skills in our second language.

When it became clear to me that both terms (teacher training and teacher development) I
understood that being a teacher is not something that is only achieved when we achieve the goal
of having a diploma, it is a process that will last until we are able to retire and may even go beyond
that because when we continue this process our skills as teachers are strengthened and creates
long term opportunities for success in our respective programs or courses we are teaching.
Bilingual teaching is a great challenge for those who have the courage to want to have this
profession and if we continue to grow using not only the theory but also using our future
experience teaching all kinds of people of different ages, we can make this process of professional
growth can be very satisfactory. What I learned from this first class is that we cannot abandon this
professional development because we will end up being the classist teachers that we complain
about so much and if we want to transcend as teachers we have to transcend as students and
continue to improve all the skills that a good bilingual teacher should have to teach in a country
like Colombia.

Bryan Ayala Trejos.