Welcome to Education Institutions, Communities and Professionnal Life

Before attending SIT, my professional identity and aspirations were largely confined within the boundaries of the EFL classroom. My primary goal was straightforward: to refine my teaching skills and become the best English teacher I could be. However, my time at SIT expanded that vision dramatically. It opened my eyes to the deeper layers of education—those that extend beyond language teaching into the socio-political, institutional, and cultural dimensions that shape how and why learning occurs.

Reflecting on the Mauritanian educational context, I now recognize how the system’s heavy emphasis on knowledge transmission has shaped a culture of teaching that values memorization over transformation. Learning, in this sense, often ends at comprehension rather than application or reflection. This realization helped me understand why meaningful, transferable, and socially responsive learning remains an urgent need in many educational settings like mine.

During my year at SIT, my understanding of education evolved from viewing language teaching as a purely linguistic pursuit to seeing it as a dynamic process of empowerment and reform. I began to perceive education not simply as an academic activity but as a form of social practice—one deeply intertwined with equity, innovation, and community engagement. My coursework, classroom experiences, and reflective practices collectively challenged my assumptions about what effective teaching entails.

This transformation was both intellectual and personal. It led me to appreciate the responsibility teachers have as agents of change within their institutions and communities. I came to see that teaching cannot be separated from the systems and contexts that sustain it. As a result, I have become increasingly committed to bridging classroom learning with the broader realities of students’ lives—to fostering education that is participatory, equitable, and transformative. Ultimately, SIT instilled in me a belief that professional growth is not an endpoint but an ongoing process of inquiry and self-renewal. It encouraged me to view teaching as a reflective, socially conscious, and collaborative act. Today, at the core of my teaching philosophy lies a deep awareness of the interrelationship between society, practice, and the role my teaching plays within that interconnected process.

Sub-Competency A.3: Teachers need to be knowledgeable about theories of contextual influences on language education

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When I applied to the University of Cambridge, I wrote about my determination to challenge a deeply entrenched educational mindset—one that defines much of Mauritania’s schooling culture. The system in which I was educated privileged transmission over transformation. Teachers were regarded as the ultimate sources of knowledge, and students were expected to absorb and reproduce that knowledge without question. This “banking model” of education, as Paulo Freire describes it, fosters a static conception of learning and reinforces a sense of intellectual complacency—a mentality of “I already know.”

Within such a context, the social, cultural, and political dimensions of education are often overlooked. Teachers rarely consider how the broader community or institutional environment shapes what happens in the classroom. As a result, both teachers and learners remain confined within an unexamined cycle that limits creativity, inquiry, and growth.

My studies at SIT transformed my understanding of education and repositioned me to see learning as a socially situated and morally purposeful act. I came to appreciate that classrooms are not isolated spaces but living reflections of the cultural and institutional systems around them. The Participatory Approach, grounded in Freirean pedagogy, played a pivotal role in this shift. It revealed that education should be both liberating and dialogic—a process through which learners and teachers co-construct knowledge, analyze their realities, and act toward social change.

Recognizing these contextual influences inspired me to pursue research in Second Language Education. I now see research not as an abstract academic exercise but as a means of transformation. I aim to cultivate a reflective self capable of navigating multiple educational contexts by consciously embodying three roles:

The Educator, who mentors colleagues and contributes to professional growth within communities of practice. 

The Practitioner, who grounds reflection in action to improve everyday teaching realities. 

The Researcher, who investigates, questions, and reimagines educational structures to promote innovation and justice.

Through dialogue with peers and faculty at SIT, I came to realize that genuine transformation of any educational system must occur through the continuous interplay of these roles. Each one nurtures the other, ensuring that theory informs practice and practice re-informs theory. When I was introduced to the ASK +A framework—Awareness, Skills, Knowledge, and Attitude—I found in it a holistic lens for understanding educational change. In Mauritania, the emphasis has traditionally fallen almost exclusively on knowledge, while awareness, skills, and attitude remain underdeveloped. Yet, these three dimensions are precisely what sustain reform and empower teachers to become reflective, contextually responsive professionals. My continuing goal is to integrate them fully into my own teaching and to promote them as essential pillars for educational renewal in my community.

Sub-Competency B.5: Teachers need to be skilled at evaluating and thinking critically about their own work and modifying its direction

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My Sandanona presentation, “The Power of Language,” was born from a personal curiosity about how language shapes identity, self-perception, and social hierarchies. It explored how linguistic choices can reproduce or resist power, inviting participants to question how discourse constructs reality. The presentation drew on my own experiences as a language learner and cultural being navigating life in the U.S. Through the lens of Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA), I examined how language mediates relationships of dominance and empowerment.

While participants found the presentation “informative” and “thought-provoking,” their feedback was unanimous in pointing to one key limitation: my talk needed stronger connections to learners’ lived experiences and classroom realities. This observation prompted an important shift in my professional stance. I realized that while the presentation succeeded in raising awareness—what Freire might describe as conscientization—it lacked an experiential component that could link critical theory to pedagogy in tangible ways.

This feedback became the foundation for a cycle of reflective inquiry that continued throughout my Training and Design for Experiential Learning (TDEL) course. My first step was to redesign the original presentation into an Original Experiential Activity (OEA) that embodied the principles of adult learning. I reframed the “Power of Language” theme around learner participation, scaffolding, and reflective dialogue. Instead of a lecture, the session became a space where participants experienced language as power—through collaborative analysis, storytelling, and guided self-reflection.

The OEA marked a clear transformation in how I approached learning design. It taught me that the true measure of effective teaching or facilitation lies not in how much information is delivered, but in how meaningfully learners engage with it. The process also made me aware of how theory and practice intersect through design thinking—how critical reflection can lead to concrete pedagogical adjustments.

This reflective evolution deepened during my final TDEL project, which required me to co-design and co-facilitate a training workshop with peers. Our team chose to revisit “The Power of Language,” but this time through a shared design process grounded in the principles of Experiential Learning Theory and Adult Education. Working collaboratively required me to negotiate ideas, reconsider assumptions, and integrate multiple perspectives into one coherent framework. In contrast to my earlier work, this design allowed the participants—not the facilitators—to bring the content to life. Their experiences, stories, and reflections became the curriculum.

Through this process, I internalized the iterative nature of reflective practice—seeing, analyzing, revising, and reimagining. My evolving work on the same theme across different contexts mirrored the recursive relationship between experience and reflection that Kolb describes. It also reaffirmed the idea that critical self-evaluation is not a one-time act but a professional habit—a willingness to adapt, reframe, and grow.

Ultimately, the progression from my Sandanona presentation to the TDEL experiential workshop represents more than a refinement of content; it symbolizes a deeper transformation in my understanding of teaching as a reflective, adaptive, and dialogic practice.

Sub-Competency C.13: Teachers need to hold attitudes of commitment to a career in second language education

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My commitment to a career in second language education is deeply rooted in both personal experience and professional conviction. When I first applied for the Fulbright program to pursue a Master’s degree in TESOL, my goal was not only to advance my own teaching but also to help expand the small yet growing community of qualified English language educators in Mauritania. Education, as a formal institution, is still relatively young in my country—the first national university was established only about three decades ago, and English was introduced into the national curriculum in the year 2000. As part of the first generation of students to study English in this new system, I felt a strong sense of responsibility to contribute to its growth. 

Two years of teaching in rural Mauritania under extremely challenging conditions made me realize that professional stagnation was a real danger. Many teachers, including myself, had limited access to training, resources, or opportunities for development. As I noted in my Cambridge Statement of Purpose, teachers “go into their classrooms and adapt little, tending to teach the exact same way year after year.” This observation underscored the need for a new model of professional learning—one that positions teachers as reflective practitioners rather than mere transmitters of knowledge.

My experience at SIT Graduate Institute marked a profound turning point in how I conceived of teaching and learning. Prior to SIT, I believed that mastery of English as a subject was enough to make me an effective teacher. This belief stemmed from an educational culture focused almost exclusively on knowledge transmission. At SIT, however, I encountered a fundamentally different paradigm—one that emphasized knowledge construction through experiential learning, reflection, and inquiry. This shift from passive reception to active engagement not only deepened my understanding of language education but also strengthened my resolve to help transform my country’s approach to teacher development. 

In reflecting on this journey, I recognize that my career commitment extends beyond classroom teaching. It involves contributing to the development of a sustainable, reflective, and innovative teacher education system in Mauritania. I aspire to bridge theory and practice by promoting models of learning that cultivate both intellectual and humanistic growth in teachers and students alike. As Freeman (2001) notes, traditional teacher education has often assumed that “knowledge about teaching and learning can be transmitted through organized professional education.” My goal is to challenge that assumption—to cultivate spaces where teachers learn through experience, reflection, and collaboration. 

Pursuing further research in Second Language Education, such as through an MPhil at Cambridge, is part of that commitment. It represents my ongoing effort to integrate theory with the lived realities of teaching in under-resourced contexts. Ultimately, my career in second language education is not only about teaching English—it is about transforming educational mindsets, nurturing teacher agency, and contributing to systemic reform that makes education in Mauritania more reflective, inclusive, and empowering.

Sub-Competency D.22: Teachers need to be aware of the socio-political dimensions of language teaching

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For a long time, I taught without any awareness of the socio-political dimensions embedded in language teaching. I viewed education as neutral and believed that politics belonged to the realm of government—not the classroom. Although I still think that not every classroom conversation must be political in the traditional sense, I now understand that teaching itself is inherently political. Every decision a teacher makes—about content, methods, language use, or classroom interaction—reflects certain values, priorities, and power relations. 

My encounter with Paulo Freire’s Participatory Approach (PA) in Approaches to Language Teaching was the point of departure for this realization. Before studying Freire, I associated education primarily with intellectual development and skill-building. The idea that classrooms could serve as sites of social transformation initially felt strange, even contradictory. Yet, as I delved deeper into Freire’s work and the principles of Critical Pedagogy, I began to see how learning and liberation are intertwined. 

Through PA, I learned that teaching is not merely about transmitting knowledge but about engaging learners in dialogue that helps them question and reshape their realities. Freire’s notion that learners’ social lives and experiences form the starting point for instruction completely reframed my understanding of curriculum. In this model, the classroom becomes a democratic space where learners co-create meaning with the teacher. Dialogue replaces lecture, and reflection becomes inseparable from action—a process Freire called praxis. 

This framework also helped me recognize how PA and the Silent Way intersect philosophically. Both approaches prioritize learner autonomy and emphasize the teacher’s role as a facilitator rather than an authority. While the Silent Way nurtures linguistic autonomy through discovery and awareness, the Participatory Approach cultivates critical consciousness (conscientização) by linking language learning to broader social realities. In both, empowerment replaces dependency. 

In my Approaches Reflection Paper, I made a distinction that continues to guide my thinking today—the difference between being “participatory” and being “participating.” The latter is simply about involvement; the former is about transformation. A participatory classroom, in Freire’s sense, is one that mirrors democratic practice—where learning becomes a rehearsal for acting upon the world rather than just understanding it. As I reflect on my previous teaching experiences in Mauritania, I now recognize that my classrooms—though well-intentioned—were far from democratic. I believed I was working for my students, yet rarely with them. Freire’s warning about “a thousand actions in favor of the people without trust in the people” resonates deeply with me. Genuine education, I have learned, begins with trusting learners as capable agents of change and aligning pedagogy with that trust. 

At the same time, I am aware of the challenges of implementing a critical pedagogy in contexts like Mauritania, where educational traditions are hierarchical and politically cautious. Applying Freire’s principles requires cultural sensitivity and a nuanced understanding of institutional constraints. Yet, the awareness of these challenges strengthens my resolve rather than discourages it. 

Moving forward, my goal is to translate critical pedagogy into contextually appropriate practices—small but meaningful shifts that encourage dialogue, reflection, and shared responsibility in learning. I now see language teaching not just as the development of communicative competence, but as an invitation to question, to connect, and to create—acts that are, in essence, both educational and political.

Agenda for Future Learning:

• Start a Bilingual Language Center (Arabic and English). The idea is to create an environment where learners of both languages can provide opportunities of meaningful interaction for each other in the target language. 

• Pursue a degree in Second Language Education and continue to build myself as an educator.

• Do more reading and research on Critical Language Teacher Education. 

• Seek opportunities for professional development. 

• Read ‘Pursuing Professional Development: The Self as Resource’, by Donald Freeman. 

• Read ‘Understanding Language Teaching: Reasoning in Action’, by Karen E. Jonson

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