Teaching Philosophy
Teaching Philosophy
Einstein once said, “Interest is the best teacher”. Similarly, Confucius has a famous saying “Better to love learning than to know it; Better to enjoy learning than to love it”, which also addresses the importance of having interests in learning something. As a language teacher, I have been working on sparking and developing students’ interest in English because I also believe that interest plays a vital role in learning.
Based on my own learning and teaching experience, I have found that Communicative Language Teaching (CLT), together with student-centered learning and effective use of technology, is extremely helpful in generating and maintaining students’ motivation.
I learned about the idea and practices of CLT during my graduate studies in the TESOL program at Teachers College. CLT is an approach focusing on interaction and using authentic materials to create real-life contexts for students’ language learning. I see CLT as a means to an end, and I make every effort to help students transfer the knowledge and skills learned from class and apply them to different settings in their life.
Rather than through mechanical exercises and drills, English is learned in a meaningful and communicative way. I always create activities that invite students to talk and share in class, and I provide helpful feedback towards their language production. During this process, students’ fluency and accuracy will both improve together with a better understanding of the language focus.
Kew words: interactive, authentic, transferable
Communicative Language Teaching (CLT)
Students are at the center of my teaching, and I make them aware that their identity, needs, and autonomy are highly valued in my class.
My ESL students in the Community Language Program come from different parts of the world: Japan, China, Poland, Brazil, Austria, Colombia, Italy, etc. Classroom diversity is something I have never experienced before, but I regard it as a precious asset in the ESL classroom rather than a challenge to the teacher. One of my strengths is memorizing students’ names and faces. It is seemingly trivial, but it shows that I acknowledge students’ identity and personality, which helps narrow the distance between us.
For adult learners, in particular, more techniques are required to drum up their interests. I always find ways to activate their schemata. In a diversified classroom, it means to find topics related to students’ identity and their cultures. For example, the topic of cultural diversity always generates discussions and students never get tired of it. As you can see, my classes focus not only on language but also on the cultural aspect. It is my job as a teacher to make students feel the value of their own culture while becoming more aware of the cultural differences and similarities between their home countries and English-speaking countries.
Identity:
Needs
Autonomy
I am devoted to students’ satisfaction in language learning, but it does not mean to cover all they want to learn in class. For me, the key should be guiding them to focus on their own learning, because the most powerful motivation usually comes from students themselves. Therefore, it is very important for students to take control of their learning and know what progress they are making. I manage to do this by helping them plan, monitor, and evaluate their own learning process.
Classroom diversity comes not only from students’ different language backgrounds but from students’ various needs for learning the language as well. Some students intend to improve daily communication skills, while others might learn it for finding jobs. While this could be a problem in a language class, I prefer to view it as an opportunity to promote their learning incentive. A language teacher should be flexible, adaptive, and willing to break the routine, so I always try my best to teach students based on their needs and create opportunities for their voice and agency to develop. A positive and safe classroom environment is also necessary for students to feel comfortable expressing their needs, opinions, and emotions in the target language. By carrying out a needs analysis and doing exit tickets, I can learn about my students’ needs better and adapt my lesson plans and instructions accordingly.
Student-Centered Learning
Online resources and classroom technology are also great assets to arouse students’ interests in learning English both in class and outside the classroom. About 15 years ago, my interest started with Disney English songs in my tape recorder. With the development of technology, we are now in a digital era. A large number of websites and apps have been created for the purpose of language learning, and I have been actively incorporating them into my English classes and recommend students appropriate resources based on their need and their proficiency level. In addition to the recommendation list for students’ own interests, I also have a Favorite List with websites that are helpful in lesson planning and teaching, including a list of YouTube videos which I find useful for interesting class activities, such as information-gap, movie dubbing, and Ted talk.
Effective Use of Technology
Some would say that language learning is a painful journey. It is true, to some extent. However, when combined with interests and incentives, language could also be acquired with ease and comfort. As an ESL teacher, I will keep working on motivation development in multiple aspects, helping my students to achieve their goals in a meaningful and delightful way.
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Ningou Qu
May 2019
(Updated on Dec.16, 2019)
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