Expectation Architects: Empowering ELT Classrooms Through Mindset-Driven Learning
Our Talks and Activites
In this session, Maira explored how setting healthy, growth-oriented expectations can transform students’ confidence, motivation, and performance. Through personal stories and classroom strategies, she showed how fostering a growth mindset helps learners embrace mistakes, feel safe, and believe in their potential. Her message was clear: when teachers expect growth, they help build futures—one mindset at a time.
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Hello everyone and greetings from El Salvador. How are you feeling today? I see that you're very participating in the in the chat box. So, are you okay? Do you feel good? Are we ready while I start presenting? So, we're fine. Okay. Mexico, great. Amazing. I see so many countries representing the teachers over there and that is just fantastic. So you inspire me a lot as educators, as colleagues and so on. Let's start and of course I will start with a question. McMillan community loves questions and
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so do I. What do you see here? I'm going to be checking on my chat box. What do you see there? What elements do you see in this picture? Please tell me. Mention just in one word. What do you see? A little stem, a plant growing, soil. All right. Serene Earth ste. Okay. Soil life. Wow. Future. Soil. Small plant life. Nature. Okay. Amazing. Next question. Still on this picture. And the question is, what could it become? That little thing you see in the middle. What can it become in the future? That's
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the beginning of life. A plant in the future. A big plant. Tomato plant. Flowers. Okay. Oak tree. Huge tree. A tree. Hope. Oh my god. Very nice. A big tree. An apple tree. Bloom. Fruit berry tree. All right. Of a community. Oh wow. Now. Yeah. Yeah. You are my people. I'm in the right place right now. Okay. A cherry tree. Okay. Now, yeah. Imagination just, you know, flowing here. Very nice. A cherry tree. Why am I asking this? Oh, I see progress and forest. Okay. Amazing. Good. Why am I asking this? Because that leads me to
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my second question. Have you ever seen a student transformed simply because someone believed they could? Yes, maybe. No, or you have been that student that was transformed. In my case, I was that student. My fifth grade teacher transformed my life with a one comment and then I was that student. Yes, of course. If you can name your students, please let's honor them in the chat box right now. You can mention either your name or your students name people you have seen being transformed just because
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someone believed in them and I'm sure that you were the ones believing in them or you were the ones uh someone believed in in the past. Okay, of course you can impact them and transforming in a good or in a bad way but of course there is always an impact. So in this session I really want to share with you with your participation of course and I want to tell you this students can really become what you expect from them and so can you. So we're going to be speaking about the power of the growth mindset and the
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expectation healthy expectations realistic expectations okay not the expectations that you know harm people hurt people and they just de devastate people for life. No, this is the real expectations that we can actually use in our classrooms. So this is possible and this is what we'll be discussing about today. So expectations as a foundation. Okay, it all starts with expectations but depending on what type of expectations this will help you in your classrooms or not. Okay, I was as I was speaking with will this has been done
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for many years already but now we're more aware of the situation. The more aware we are, the more impact we have in the students. Okay? So, for example, imagine someone in your classroom saying, "I'm not good at English. My accent is terrible. My grammar is just the most horrible thing in the world. I will never learn." That is a fixed mindset. What if we foster growth mindset and we change that idea in their minds and in our minds as well and we transform that phrase by saying, "I'm
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still learning English and I can improve. I'm just learning. I will do it. I will nail it. Okay. Somehow at at any point, but it will happen. Okay. We're not just, you know, tolerating mistakes. No, but we're making mistakes. Part of the progress, as you were mentioning in the previous picture, progress. So, that's the difference between a fixed mindset and a growth mindset. And the expectations we'll be using from now on because I'm sure that if you're already doing this,
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congratulations. But if you don't do it more intentionally and you will see the results. What else can I tell you about this? Expectations in our classroom improve academic performance. If I make them believe that they will learn, they will learn. If I um frequently every day saying and telling them, okay, you are great students, you are smart, you are special, you will nail this, this verb tense, you will master it. Maybe not today, but tomorrow you will and eventually that will improve academic
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performance because your interventions as an educator and the um courage students will be learning from you as well that will give you results. Academic performance expectations also foster greater motivation and engagement. They know that that is the English class in which the teacher believes in them. So that will make more motivated and more engaged and more encouraged students. Okay. It also expectations also enhance self-esteem and confidence. Why? Because expect right expectations blend emotional intelligence with
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practical pedagogy. It's like okay I'm teaching you language. I'm I'm helping you. I'm guiding you. I'm instructing you on how to learn a new language. But I'm also working on your resilience, on your work team skills, on your empathy, on your patience, okay? On your self-d self-t talk and so many other things that we can do with emotional intelligence and English. And of course the correct expectations on students and my favorite part of expectations. They produce inclusive and growth
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oriented classroom culture. In my classroom we understand that mistakes are part of the progress. Okay. That you will make mistakes once or twice or maybe three times or four times but you will learn the thing. Okay. We are not making fun of anyone in this classroom. So this is the culture in my classroom. We respect each other. We learn together. We help each other grow. We help each other learn. So right expectations because I believe they can do it. And the more I work for that, the more um interventions and strategies I
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implement, they will do it because they believe it. They and they have someone that believes in them as well. So I'm telling you, I was the real result of that in the past. Now you can see it in your classroom. What about if we implement this intentionally when we design our classes as well how it looks in real life like for example we're going to be normalizing struggle because the struggle is real. Learning a new language makes uh people feel anxious. Making mistakes paralyzes people and so
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many other things. Fear and well so many aspects you already know. But in my classroom, mistakes mean your brain is growing, that you're learning a second, a third language. Can you imagine how important that is? How smart that makes someone. So normalize the struggle. We're not going to stay there in the struggling uh area forever. No, but we're encouraging to move on from that, but it's normal to start in that stage. Students will feel safe and they will know that their English class is a safe
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place. Praise the effort, not the talent. We have so many students, students that maybe they their intelligence is not specifically the linguistic one, okay? Maybe they have a different type of intelligence. They different they have a different type of learning style, but they're still important. So, we're going to be praising the effort, right? We do have marks. We do have scores to report and everything that's important and necessary, but I will praise the effort. Okay? You didn't pronounce this today,
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but you will pronounce it tomorrow. What about the um the past of the regular verbs? It's hard for some people to pronounce them. It was hard for me, but I nailed it eventually after practice and practice and I felt safe and I feel safe now. But praising that the progress, pressing uh praising the progress, not just the kid that we usually mirror in the classroom because they remind us about ourselves in the in the past. No, it's just all of them deserve praise because of the progress that will make them feel confident to
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learn and right expectations and model the growth mindset. Okay. So share with them what happened to you. I was shy but now look at me I'm a teacher. I would never speak in classes but now look at me I can't stop talking. That humanizes the teacher. You are not perfect. You're human. So are they. But that will make you uh um bond with students. They will look familiar in yourself and they will say okay if the teacher could do it I can do it. Especially because that teacher that could overcome so many
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other situations is believing in me now. How important that is. So please I know you're great teachers. The fact that you're here, the fact that you're here is like you want to be better and better teachers because I know you're already the best, but you can be even better on that. Okay. So, yeah, they may have different type of struggles and um I know sometimes the the outcomes that we are supposed to meet may overshadow that the this expectations, but it's possible. It's possible. I mean if we
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really want to do it I think there's always a way to find the uh to find solutions to apply this and please let me be very honest we're when we talk about expectations I'm speaking about realistic expectations not the not the unrealistic ones they are at one level I will never expect them to be on a higher level and it's not because I don't believe they can do it but they are in a specific stage of the English language. So my expectations should be once again healthy and realistic. Otherwise that
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will frustrate students and frustrate you as a teacher as well. So be honest. I know they have all the potential. But right now at this level these are my expectations. High expectations but still in my control area, my control um activities, my control uh area of of monitor and everything. So set realistic expectations not unrealistic and not once again not because they cannot do it. It's because the stage demands an a specific set of expectations. Okay. Now the question here is okay Myra very beautiful. It sounds very romantic.
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I know I know but does it really work? Well let me tell you four four short stories about this. if this really works. So this is Manuel. He was my student when he was 14 years old. Shy teenager. He would never speak in front because he was a a um panicked of the audience of speaking in public and I was encouraging him day and night every day in English classes, you know, motivating him, making him feel safe. And now is an an English teacher. Look at the other picture. He is an English coach in an
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academy. Oh my god, I'm so happy when he sends me these photos and I actually texted him and I'm going to talk about you again because you're amazing. Now, the next person I want introduce you is Sada. sad is part of my community project and in English and she told me that she will never use a smartphone because someone told her she was not a smart girl and I was come on you are you are brilliant you're beautiful blah blah blah blah you know real blah blah blah okay now she can use she can use a
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smartphone and she uses it to Google songs in English that she is now memorizing as part of his journey in English so she's just six and now she's a smart girl with a smartphone. Meet Vanessa. She was also my student. She was afraid, terrified of speaking. If Manuel was shy, this girl was a mute girl. She would never speak. She won a scholarship in one of the most prestigious universities in the classroom by speaking English. Okay, she did it. She speaks what's necessary. She's not like a chucked girl, but she
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speaks English and she got us a scholarship. And then my countryside boy, I met him when I was his teacher at college, his professor and shy. He could he couldn't speak English. And I said, "Okay, Danilo, you are smart. You are brilliant. You got a scholarship in this university." So I was encouraging him in healthy expectations. Now he's in New York studying a master degree and now he's part of the finance and invest investment club speaking full English all the time different ages different
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context and they are real these are people that really inspire me and I set high but healthy expectations on them so what about expectations for us educators when we expect growth in others we grow too expectation it's just a pedagog a pedagogical tool. It's a mirror for our own evolution. If you help others grow, you will grow as well. And let me finish by telling you this, dear teachers. If we dare to architect expectations, we stop teaching English and start building futures one mindset at a time. I truly
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believe you can do it. Trust me. I know everywhere you are in that beautiful country you're representing right now, you can do that. Set expectations based on growth mindset and you will see results if you do it in a very intentional way from now on. So, thank you so much.