Teaching Philosophy

When enrolling in my school’s certificate for Teaching English as a Second Language I had assumed this would give me a more rounded English experience as I did not plan to teach post-graduation. I have always had a love for English and enjoy stepping out of my own perspective to try and see it from the perspective of someone learning it for the first time. Bill Bryson illustrates many examples of this in his book The Mother Tongue: The English Language and How it Got That Way, but I have clung to one quote for years:

People don't talk like this, theytalklikethis.

Syllables, words, sentences run together like a watercolor left in the rain.

While this is true for all languages, this is a great starting point to recognize what it is like to learn a new language, and it is from this “outside” perspective that I decipher how to approach teaching English as a second language.

What is my role as a teacher in the classroom?

My main role as a teacher and goal as an educator is to simply be the medium through which students receive and retain information, the means through which students can learn. I believe that every classroom needs a mix of controlled, semi-controlled, and free styles of educating, and this is for good reason: I do not want to be over dominant or controlling by solely lecturing the students, and on the other end of the spectrum I do not want to be so hands-off in the classroom that there is no set goals or objectives. Control can help guide students, and the freer style can help students learn from their peers or sources besides the teacher, so it is highly important to me that there be a mixed of all three levels. I want my students to know that I am genuinely invested in their education more than anything else. Learning is a life-long goal, and there is no end. I want them not just to achieve the goals and objectives I have set—I want to inspire them to see the merit of learning and educating oneself, so they can set their own goals, and recognize this goes beyond the classroom. It is my job to facilitate this.

What role do students have in the classroom?

When attending a concert or some other performative event, I always find it cheesy when the person on stage says something along the lines of “I wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for you guys.” This is as true for performers as it is for educators. Our job as educators relies on the students alone. It is for them that we do this, and this should, at any point in time, be palpable for the students. The students determine how I am to do my job. Every classroom is different, and while the content or goals I set may not change from year to year, the method of instruction, type of activity, participation framework, grading style and more will depend on who I am teaching. In order to show the students that I am invested in them even beyond the classroom, I must first show them that 1) they are why I am there and 2) they are why I run the class the way that I do. After all, the students directly facilitate how I should conduct instruction in the classroom.

How do I believe learning is achieved?

Knowledge is a widely interdisciplinary act, as it is done by connecting previously held knowledge to new information, forming new knowledge. Forming these networks shows the students comprehend the content enough to apply it to other courses they have or are currently taking, meaning they not only grasped the concept but can also create relationships between knowledge spheres. At a smaller scale, this means each unit relates to the previous and the upcoming one, and each activity builds on the one done before. If done cohesively, the growing levels of complexity will aid in retention and memory networking. In implementation, this means the teacher should also be learning and regularly looking for ways to better themselves and the education they provide for their students. These things being said, I think learning is done at different paces for each student, and some students respond better to certain modes of instruction than they do to others. Having a variety of instruction types can aid each students learning, especially those who learn “differently.” Ideally, everything in the classroom and in the instruction will inspire learning within the students and nothing will act as a stumbling block to achieving this.

What teaching methods will I use?

My main role as a teacher and goal as an educator is to simply be the medium through which students receive and retain information, the means through which students can learn. I believe that every classroom needs a mix of controlled, semi-controlled, and free styles of educating, and this is for good reason: I do not want to be over dominant or controlling by solely lecturing the students, and on the other end of the spectrum I do not want to be so hands-off in the classroom that there is no set goals or objectives. Control can help guide students, and the freer style can help students learn from their peers or sources besides the teacher, so it is highly important to me that there be a mix of all three levels. I want my students to know that I am genuinely invested in their education more than anything else. Learning is a life-long goal, and there is no end. I want them not just to achieve the goals and objectives I have set—I want to inspire them to see the merit of learning and educating oneself, so they can set their own goals, and recognize this goes beyond the classroom. It is my job to facilitate this.