teaching philosophy
Throughout grade school, university, and other training courses, it was not easy to recognize what made my favorite instructors so great. I just knew that I liked them. I was not able to recognize the nuanced classroom management techniques or well scaffolded lesson plans. I do not believe these are noticeable when a learner is truly captivated by the lesson. Therefore, captivating learners is a goal of mine while facilitating a classroom. With that in mind, I strive to incorporate and improve three major principles while teaching: maintaining a student centered environment, keeping interaction the primary focus as described by Task Based Language Teaching, and keeping our language goals transparent.
Student Centered Environments
While keeping in mind our learners’ own motivation, agency, and identity, we can ask ourselves: why are they studying English; what goals do they have; who will they be communicating with and relating to in the language? These need to be prominent in our minds while teaching as we focus on their egos and not our own. Teachers should build rapport with students and get to know them on a human level as they strive to respect their culture, their personal life, and their interests.
The diverse linguistic and cultural backgrounds of all students are assets and our classrooms should be platforms for exchanges of thoughts and experiences to develop self-understanding and empathy. I continually consider the best way to give my students the power: field students’ questions to their peers first; allow them sufficient think time before expecting an answer; engage them in the content by making it relatable to their personal lives - ask their opinions; treat them with respect and stay aware of varying sociocultural pragmatics; have students teach one another and consult one another before consulting me. The students are the classroom’s primary resource.
Another way for students to be aware of their power is to focus on their autonomy as learners. We can promote learner responsibility by assigning language learning goal setting on a regular basis, helping them to shape a realistic goal which can be achieved both inside and outside of the classroom, and suggesting how to reach it. Another idea is to ask learners to assess themselves as students of English. Periodic student feedback on our teaching, assignments, objectives, and lesson planning helps us to adjust our teaching to best suit their needs.
Task Based Language Teaching
While aiming to create communicative lessons, I feel a lesson should look like a lunch tray, featuring a bit of each major skill - reading, writing, listening, and speaking. Students need to be aware that each skill can reinforce the target language, and the more reinforcement, the more comfortable they will feel while using the language. In an integrated setting, one skill may be used to reinforce another. For example, communicative activities often feature writing before speaking, e.g. writing survey questions before posing them to classmates.
Authenticity is key; the transferability of students’ understandings from the classroom to real life is a major goal in my classroom. Communicative Language Teaching (CLT) and Task Based Language Teaching (TBLT) support this notion and suggest using hands-on activities such as role-plays, interviews, games, and projects. The theory behind CLT is that interaction and communication is the primary function of language, and conveying meaning is the most important process of language. Activities should involve using real, meaningful communication in tasks. It views the learning process as a set of communicative tasks that are directly linked to the curricular goals they serve, the purpose of which extend beyond the practice of language for its own sake (Brown, 2007, p.52). While I believe meaning conveyed through fluency is most important, I also stress the importance of accuracy; "Communicative goals are best achieved by giving due attention to language use and not just usage, to fluency and not just accuracy, to authentic language and contexts, and to students’ eventual need to apply classroom learning to previously unrehearsed contexts in the real world" (Brown, 2007, p.79).
Transparency
We should set our students up to succeed. Our lessons should be well scaffolded with transparent focus. We can tell our students explicitly what our intentions are by walking them through the objectives of the class, and keeping a function of communication clear throughout each activity. Students should walk away from a classroom knowing what they accomplished and whether their objectives were met. There is no need to keep the focus a mystery even in inductive tasks.
My lesson plans feature activities arranged into pre, during, and post stages with clear transitions. Scripting my lessons helps me give clear instructions, set clear goals in an activity, and stay focused throughout. While planning, I must ask myself what language my students need to accomplish our goal and whether they have that language ability or not.
During my eight years of teaching English, I have been fortunate enough to experience various teaching contexts from EFL to ESL, across all ages, levels, and classroom sizes, and I aim to let these three principles shine through in my teaching as I continue to grow.
References
Brown, D. (2007). Teaching by Principles, An Interactive Approach to Language Pedagogy (third ed.). White Plains, NY: Pearson Education.
Student Centered Environments
While keeping in mind our learners’ own motivation, agency, and identity, we can ask ourselves: why are they studying English; what goals do they have; who will they be communicating with and relating to in the language? These need to be prominent in our minds while teaching as we focus on their egos and not our own. Teachers should build rapport with students and get to know them on a human level as they strive to respect their culture, their personal life, and their interests.
The diverse linguistic and cultural backgrounds of all students are assets and our classrooms should be platforms for exchanges of thoughts and experiences to develop self-understanding and empathy. I continually consider the best way to give my students the power: field students’ questions to their peers first; allow them sufficient think time before expecting an answer; engage them in the content by making it relatable to their personal lives - ask their opinions; treat them with respect and stay aware of varying sociocultural pragmatics; have students teach one another and consult one another before consulting me. The students are the classroom’s primary resource.
Another way for students to be aware of their power is to focus on their autonomy as learners. We can promote learner responsibility by assigning language learning goal setting on a regular basis, helping them to shape a realistic goal which can be achieved both inside and outside of the classroom, and suggesting how to reach it. Another idea is to ask learners to assess themselves as students of English. Periodic student feedback on our teaching, assignments, objectives, and lesson planning helps us to adjust our teaching to best suit their needs.
Task Based Language Teaching
While aiming to create communicative lessons, I feel a lesson should look like a lunch tray, featuring a bit of each major skill - reading, writing, listening, and speaking. Students need to be aware that each skill can reinforce the target language, and the more reinforcement, the more comfortable they will feel while using the language. In an integrated setting, one skill may be used to reinforce another. For example, communicative activities often feature writing before speaking, e.g. writing survey questions before posing them to classmates.
Authenticity is key; the transferability of students’ understandings from the classroom to real life is a major goal in my classroom. Communicative Language Teaching (CLT) and Task Based Language Teaching (TBLT) support this notion and suggest using hands-on activities such as role-plays, interviews, games, and projects. The theory behind CLT is that interaction and communication is the primary function of language, and conveying meaning is the most important process of language. Activities should involve using real, meaningful communication in tasks. It views the learning process as a set of communicative tasks that are directly linked to the curricular goals they serve, the purpose of which extend beyond the practice of language for its own sake (Brown, 2007, p.52). While I believe meaning conveyed through fluency is most important, I also stress the importance of accuracy; "Communicative goals are best achieved by giving due attention to language use and not just usage, to fluency and not just accuracy, to authentic language and contexts, and to students’ eventual need to apply classroom learning to previously unrehearsed contexts in the real world" (Brown, 2007, p.79).
Transparency
We should set our students up to succeed. Our lessons should be well scaffolded with transparent focus. We can tell our students explicitly what our intentions are by walking them through the objectives of the class, and keeping a function of communication clear throughout each activity. Students should walk away from a classroom knowing what they accomplished and whether their objectives were met. There is no need to keep the focus a mystery even in inductive tasks.
My lesson plans feature activities arranged into pre, during, and post stages with clear transitions. Scripting my lessons helps me give clear instructions, set clear goals in an activity, and stay focused throughout. While planning, I must ask myself what language my students need to accomplish our goal and whether they have that language ability or not.
During my eight years of teaching English, I have been fortunate enough to experience various teaching contexts from EFL to ESL, across all ages, levels, and classroom sizes, and I aim to let these three principles shine through in my teaching as I continue to grow.
References
Brown, D. (2007). Teaching by Principles, An Interactive Approach to Language Pedagogy (third ed.). White Plains, NY: Pearson Education.