My autobiography

Personal Statement

View from Home

Satellite view of Los Caobos

I divide my home-time between my home in San Miguelito, Amelia Dennis de Icaza, Altos del Cristo, taking my sons out and my girlfriend’s home. I’ve lived in that community almost all my life, with the exception of a few years here and there, even when I was married, I lived there with my family. I think it’s the view that keeps me there; I know I’m going to miss it when I finally move out. Recently I’ve been spending more and more time at my girlfriend’s home in Los Caobos. Don Bosco. Although I was married for ten years, this new experience doesn’t compare to anything I’ve lived before. I love my three kids, and the only issue I regret about this whole situation is that I cannot be with them as much as I like, but I try to be there for them whenever they need me.

Professional Statement

My experience with the English language began in my early childhood. My mother always says that when I was in Kindergarten, I used to speak gibberish and told my classmates that it was English. I have always been fascinated by foreign languages, especially English and when I listened to languages I don’t understand I get curious and would like to know what’s been said.

I could say that I really began flirting with English early in life. When I was 6 or 7 years old, I used to watch a segment called “Just for Kids” which was aired on Channel 8 Saturday mornings from 7:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. It consisted only on cartoons, both American and Japanese. The cartoons were all in the English language, but some of them had been already aired in national TV. I remembered most of the characters’ dialogue in Spanish, so I associated it with what the characters were saying in English. I inferred the meaning, and then I pronounced the words in English the best I could. So you could say that I was training my brain, ears and tongue in the sounds and structure of the English language. My father did not approve of my watching TV in English. He said that I was wasting my time watching and listening to something I didn’t understand. It did not stop me, but I had to do it covertly when nobody was around.

A little later on, when I already read and write, I discovered comic books, and wonders of wonders, the best of them were in English. Every month I saved $1.75 and went to Gran Morrison store and bought a G.I. Joe comic book (G.I. Joe was all the rage at the time). At first I only saw the pictures, but later on I tried to match the words on the balloons with the action in the pictures I tried to guess the meaning from context and illustration. Eventually I got hold of an English-Spanish dictionary and looked up for the meanings. Quite often it was of no help, I couldn’t find the meanings for idiomatic expressions, jargons, conjugated verbs and the like, so I had to fill in the gaps with what I thought was the correct interpretation.

Of course, this activity took a lot of my time, and again I was criticized upon, this time by my older cousins for spending my time reading “silly comic books.” I think the important point is I was an avid reader at age 9 or 10 which is not very common on children that age. Looking in retrospective, I realize that I was acquiring proficiency in English reading and writing, because I also used to write the catchy phrases in my school notebooks. I was always proud of telling my classmates the meaning of those phrases in Spanish. Too bad I didn’t have an English teacher during elementary school; it could have been of great help..

At around the time I was 11 years old I began to pay attention to music. It’s not that I’d never heard it before, but by that time I began to really listen to it. It was like music was a sort of Mermaid’s call that entranced me. Of course, my favorite music was in English, I used to listen to pop music mostly. I listened to one song many times; I tried to memorize the music and to figure out what was said. I could clearly recognize some words, some others I just filled in with an approximate and then I sang out what I expected was an accurate version. Luckily no one ever figured out the nonsense I sometimes said.

At age 12 to 14, I specialized my taste in regards to music. I began increasingly to listen to rock; mostly European heavy metal, which of course was also in English. Then, I was no longer satisfied by just imagining what the words in a song might be. I replayed the same song many times, stanza by stanza, trying to figure out the words. I systematically wrote down what I guessed were the songs lyrics. Sometimes I got lucky and a music magazine with song lyrics landed on my hands, which provided me with the opportunity to compare my lyrics versions with the ones in it. Needless to say, I almost never got one completely right, but I kept trying harder every time. I might add that I never undertook these activities because I wanted to learn English. I was learning English free from stress, at my own pace and against all odds.

By around this time, one of my favorite bands was Iron Maiden from England. Iron Maiden has a particularity; its songs are about science fiction and fiction masterpieces or historical events. These songs incited my curiosity, that was how I got to read Tolkien’s The Hobbit and The Lord of the Ring Trilogy, Frank Herbert’s Dune, Arthur C. Clark’s 2001 A Space Odyssey, along with the movie, H. P. Lovecraft’s The Call of Kthulhu, or Isaac Asimov’s Foundation Trilogy, and I, Robot among many, many others. Reading books became my passion, and still is. I always preferred the original English versions over the Spanish translations, so whenever possible I tried to read in English. Broadening my literary horizons from comic books to novels helped me increase my vocabulary. Every day I got acquainted with new words and my obsession for understanding drove me to find meaning for them.

My biggest test in English came by the end of 1989, I was 16 years old and the US had just invaded Panama in the Just Cause operation, during that period of social unrest and uncertainty, law was held by US soldier patrols. The place I lived then, and still do, was specially patrolled day and night. It happened one day that I and a group of friends were hanging out at a corner and one of these patrols stopped to check on us. None of the soldiers spoke Spanish and none of my friends spoke English. I had never, ever, up to that moment sustained a conversation in English, I never thought I could. But when the sergeant in charge of the patrol began to aske us who we were, what were we doing, where did we live, I could understand every word he said, it was a really wonderful experience because I understood!!! But, it was just a part of it, for I answered each one of the questions…in English. I still remember that moment, the words came to my mouth like out of the blue, I didn’t even thought them in Spanish first. I might have mispronounced half of them, but I got my message across, in English, and it was clearly understood, so clearly understood that the sergeant and I spoke for over 20 minutes. My friends asked me why I never told them that I speak English, that was the moment I realized “Gee, I speak English!”

The rest is ancient history, a couple of years went by and the time to decide for a university career came around, so I took the most logical decision; I enrolled in the English school in the University of Panama, not because I wanted to be an English teacher, I didn’t even know you study there for that, but because I like it. At College I could prove and disprove my theories about the English language, I had the opportunity to polish it,. Everything I knew about English was learned mostly on my own for I never took an English course. Therefore I was full of misconceptions and conceptual mistakes. I had to unlearn what I had learned, modify my old cognitive structures and relearn issues I gave for granted about the English language.

While I acquired valuable knowledge about the English language at college and it also helped me improve it quite a bit, I must confess that I’ve learned much more from teaching it. I mean, I’ve acquired a working knowledge of the English language. Seen how my students learn English, analyzing their rights and wrongs, and why do they have them, have taught me a lot, and not only about English but about language in general. I’ve learned more from my students than I could have ever imagined. Every time I step into an English classroom is an opportunity to improve my English.

My first experience with an actual, regular English class was in “Escuela Gran Bretaña” where I was hired by the Ministry of Education as a regular English teacher, I had to do a “Bridge” that is that some days I had to go on the morning shift and the rest on the afternoon shift, so I got to know every teacher on the school, I could say that my first year in a state elementary school was my worst year and my best year. It was my worst year because professionally I made a lot of mistakes that could have been easily avoided if I had a little more experience and it was my best year because I acquired a valuable learning about teaching and handling with children.

One of the things that strike me the most of instruction in a public school was the lack of interest in the learners’ understanding. I felt it was somehow wrong, that students understanding and learning should be our main objective instead of teaching content, looking back I realized that I was trying to have my learners learning the way I did, through discovery and realization, building the own concepts and cognitive structures. I refuse to copy exactly what I have done the year before and always looked for ways to promote my learners thinking and independence. I used to spend most of my time thinking on activities that could make my learners understand.

Some years passed in this fashion, when I had the opportunity to attend a workshop that really changed my life professionally. I was lucky to attend one of Debby Psychollos’ seminar/workshop where a whole new world of possibilities opened up before me. Besides acquiring invaluable learning, I finally found out that I was not crazy, that what I had been doing with my students was actually right, of course most of my colleagues still thought differently at that time, but I never minded that. When I came back to my school I went right away to implement everything I learned with Debby; from Collegiality to Cooperative Learning, passing through the different techniques and activities that supported them.

At first it was really difficult, because most of the grade teachers did not approve of my methods, they wanted to have a teacher that wouldn’t allow the learners to talk, move and share in the classroom, but I keep on striving to do my job to the best of my abilities always having as a North my learners. Then it happen one day that a Richmond Publishing representative saw what I was doing in a classroom and asked me if I would be willing to share what I do with some English teachers from other schools, I said OK and she invited me to a teachers meeting a week later.

I presented a simple activity I used to do that relates colors and actions using balloons and the teachers liked it. The head of Richmond Publishing in Panama was present and he told me to pass by his office the next day that he had a little present for me. So on the afternoon the next day, I went there and he presented me with a book and an envelop with $25.00. I never thought that you got paid for sharing, but he asked me if I was willing to do it when they call me and I said yes. I thought it was a great opportunity to share what I have with other teachers, so I became an Academic Consultant.

The following years validated what I had done all along, as time passed by and I got the opportunity to help my learners grow, I also had the opportunity to access more resources than before, but I never forgot the lessons my growing years taught me. I never lost sight that my learners should think by themselves and be able to relate what I offer them with what they already know. More importantly, they should find the answers by themselves with a little help from my part.

By the beginning of 2005 a mayor change was in store for me, I was invited to form part of the first members of an educational projects the like has never been seen anywhere before. I had to momentarily retire from teaching English in order to devote my time to the project. There we research and develop new educational tools and instruments, besides finding coherence between theory and practice and share it with teachers from all over the Republic. I personally work with people like Alberto J. Cañas the founder and Associate Director of the Institute for Human and Machine Cognition (http://ihmc.us) and Joseph D. Novak (Cornell University) who proposed the Theory of Knowledge and the creator of Concept Maps, along with an interdisciplinary, highly motivated and extremely intelligent team. While the experiences are totally enjoyable I always resort to my years learning English as a source for both experience and insight into the process of learning. But I could not stay away from teaching English long, so I applied and got a course at a local private university. There I can put to practice what I have acquired over the years and also test some new theories.

Finally, I would like to add that with English, as with everything else, you never stop learning, it is a constant quest, so I, that have been teaching English for ten years, can say that today I’m still acquiring English as my second language. I might have used methods and techniques I was unaware of, call it Audio-lingual, Grammar Direct, Natural, Communicative, etcetera ad infinitum, and I actually don’t know and may never know because it just happened in my case, but that acquisition will continue until I exhale my last breath.