Task 1: Learner Autobiography

Autobiography

Loreto Estefanía Pinochet López

I was born and raised in Viña del Mar (Chile) where I lived until 2013 when my family moved to Quilpue (Chile). During my scholarship, I attended two semi-private schools: Liceo Nuestra Señora de la Paz and Colegio Ana Maria Janer. While I was growing, I discovered that I wanted to teach when I was older, but I was not sure about what I wanted to teach.

In both schools in which I studied, the English class was not the best. The influence of English in my life came from Disney movies, series and my aunt, who is an English-Spanish translator. I was helped by her to improve my English skills since I was a little girl and with her, I could watch series or movies in English all the time. This helped me to be always the best in my English class.

I graduated from the school in the year 2013 with special recognition as one of the best students of my generation. In the year 2014, I started at the University of Playa Ancha in a different course of studies, I attended Occupational Therapy for 2 years until I realized I wanted to teach English. I did not enter to pedagogy as a first option due to the pressure that my family put on me since they wanted me to have a better salary when I started to work. It is known that here in Chile, teaching is not a well-paid career.

In the year 2017, I started English pedagogy at the University of Playa Ancha and it was the best decision I could ever make. Last year (2019), I started to attend my practicum and I did it in two different schools. One of them has a lot of access to do a good class of English owing to every classroom has a computer, WIFI connection, data and free access to the school's library. On the other hand, the second school has only one data for the entire school and I did not see a library for the children in it. I could be part of two realities and I grew as a future teacher thanks to that, due to I have to think about how to make interesting classes with few resources, and I know that experience will help me in the future if I work in a similar school someday. 

In all this journey I have learned a lot of English and I have improved my English skills, but more importantly, I have learned about children and how to teach them successfully.
I am excited about this final year learning how to be an excellent teacher and I am even more excited about the end of this stage and the start of my new life as an English teacher.