PHILOSOPHY OF TEACHING
Can you imagine a high school level foreign language course where the teacher allows you to teach a lower level section for a day? That is precisely what I did in my last year of American Sign Language (ASL). I was teaching a class period because my teacher had been listening to me for three years, getting to know me, and understood what I wanted to gain from the class. I was lucky to have such an active, caring, and passionate person as my first foreign language teacher. It was in fact partially because of her teaching that I decided to teach a language as well. The teachers I have had and the classes I have taught have inspired my teaching philosophy. I reflect and realized that I want to emanate their positive points. As a teacher I strive to be active, caring, and passionate. I want my lessons to have variety, build autonomy, and be flexible depending on the context.
Attributes of a Good Language Teacher
A piece of my heart crumbles when I see a student begin to fall asleep or look completely disinterested in class. I have found that my active and humorous personality invites students to lend an ear and pay more attention in class. I actively engage students by moving about the room, participating in conversations with students, creating dialogue before and after class, and showing animation in my face and body. Additionally, I make an effort to understand what the students find funny and incorporate it into the class. For example, many of my PowerPoints and class materials in the past have included memes. I share humorous stories about my life to lighten the atmosphere of what could otherwise become a heavy, success-focused classroom environment.
I also am passionate and caring. One of my core values is passion and I show this by making an activities work for the students and by showing a passion for language learning. A new vocabulary word is not a few letters on a blank background, but a new expression of an idea with feeling, color, and past, present, and future. A colloquial term is not just a short way to explain a larger concept, but a package of meaning that has been crafted and refined by the people who have and will use it. Through this passion I also practice care towards my students. Much like my ASL teacher did for me, I desire to be a sounding board for each student’s curiosity, insights, and issues with the wider world. This involves getting to know each student as a whole person, rather than just a language learner. When a teacher genuinely cares, she listens to the students and includes their judgements in the execution of a successful class. Not only will this increase learner satisfaction, but it can also increase rapport between students and the teacher.
Attributes of Good Teaching
I believe that variety is the spice of life. Therefore, variety is also the spice of learning. I follow a post-methods approach, meaning I do not adhere to any one teaching methodology such as CLT, TLBT, or CLIL because I feel this can suffocate variety. Instead I incorporate aspects of different approaches to create a dynamic classroom. Variety is not only important to methodology, but also in activity genre. A focus on only reading or writing, accuracy or fluency, communication skills or test skills, can limit not only the teacher, but also the students’ knowledge of the language. Therefore, I strive to create lessons that rotate between different foci in order to broaden the students’ language horizons.
Creating variety also cultivates autonomy because students can discover what aspects they favor about a language. In a sense, they can discover their own passions within the language. By increasing this passion, or motivation, students increase their autonomy as well. With increased autonomy, learners can take more of the learning process into their own hands. They can become both the student and the teacher.
Of course, all of this does not exist in a vacuum. Instead, we live in a world in which context is defines everything. Understand the context, and you can understand how to teach the class. As I mentioned previously, I do not prescribe to one teaching approach, instead I determine what teaching approaches are most appropriate for each context. Some classes require an active teacher role, others require the teacher to become a student. Some classes call for more discipline and structure while others call for a free-spirited atmosphere. From teaching elementary and university ESL students in Hawaii and EFL students in Macau, I have learned that flexibility and the ability to successfully assess context is key to a successful classroom.
Ultimately it is important to teach with my heart and the heart of the learners in mind. Being aware of what the environment tells me is important, and it dictates how I will construct the class. However, I will always show caring, passion, and active interest in my students and their lives within and beyond the language classroom.