Social Interaction, High Expectations And Teach Through Content

In my future work with High School students in Chile I will include these three different approaches in my teaching. Why? Because I think it is necessary to make content meaningful for the students. It is important that our students can express their ideas and experiences. The activities must be plan in the way the students can see themselves reflected and integrated, we have to talk about our culture, desires, feelings, society and life.
In Chile teachers always tell their student if they learn English, they will have better jobs, better opportunities, in a few words they will have a better life. From my point of view these things are really important and maybe are true, but I am not sure that students really think that English can change their lives. For this reason it is important to have in mind the students' interests, we have to give them the opportunity to think by themselves if English or Education in general can make a difference. We can show them how different societies all over the world have improved their lives because they believed that through English they could be in contact with different people and communicate with them. Then they can compare and contrast their reality and learn that it is possible to live better. But to do all these things it is critical that we really believe in the students' potential, we have to trust in them and give them all our support, because this is our job. It is not our work put labels to our students neither go to a class thinking that those students can not do it better. We do not have to plan the activities thinking in what they do not know or "can not do" we must think in what they really know and build on that.