Teaching is an art. It is the type of art that must be practiced by dedicated artisans who are humble to their talents so as to always remember that one must continuously critique and improve oneself to keep up with their generation of students.
Professionalism is multifaceted.
I feel very strongly that teachers of Spanish need to seek out as many opportunities as possible to keep abreast of the language. Having the opportunity to live abroad is the best way for non-native speakers to be immersed into the culture and to practice language in an authentic setting. In addition, I feel that teachers need to continue classes in education and in their target areas to be able to give their best to students. But it is the students who can look up to their teachers as role models that are the focus of my philosophy of teaching. I sincerely believe that students need a teacher who is humanistic, someone who has patience and has the ability to treat students as individual learners with different learning styles.