Teaching Philosophy
Being an English major has improved my understanding of both British and American culture, which also sets a solid foundation in the field of English teaching. In my undergraduate, I studied Advanced Translation and Interpretation. During the four years of my undergraduate, I was greatly inspired by a professor, who conducted a communicative way of teaching English. This experience, as a language learner, along with my subsequent teaching experience spanning across a wide range of age groups, has helped my self-reflection and shaped my beliefs in language learning and teaching.
The ultimate goal of teaching is to develop learners’ communicative competence, linguistic competence, discourse competence, strategic competence, and pragmatic competence, through the domains of four skills, such as listening, speaking, reading, and writing. Thus, teaching does not entail only one competence. Teachers need to resort to certain vehicles to achieve these goals. Dewey suggests “learning can be achieved through doing”. I believe in conducting CLT (Communicative Language Teaching) by instilling knowledge bit by bit through concrete practices. CLT can offer better chance to empower learners and to engage them in spontaneous production. It provides a stage where learners dominate interactions and discussions, while the role of teachers lies in scaffolding and providing corrective feedbacks at the right timing. Peer learning and peer feedback are highly encouraged in developing independent learners.
Five principles that I want to lead in my classroom teaching are meaning-oriented, learner-centered, integration of four skills, authentic input and authentic output. I believe teaching should be meaning-oriented. I will develop a multi-layered syllabus, and conduct more communicative and meaning-based tasks. Thus, the gap between classroom learning and the reality can be minimized. CLT teaching is learner-centered. The implementation of a CLT approach and the design of specific tasks require a match between what the learners desire to accomplish and what the teacher can provide. Through needs analysis, I can focus on the needs of students in order to conduct an effective teaching which suits the learner best. An inventory of learners’ needs can provide teacher with insights for designing relevant and well-sequenced tasks that will allow learners to experience the target language in use. Due to the diversified background of learners, a variety of tasks, such as listing, classifying, matching, problem solving, story telling, habits and traditions, etc., may be needed to cater to different needs, learning styles and proficiency levels.
As there are so many constraints on second language acquisition, such as L1 transfer, maturation, UG, memory and Input, since I cannot change or measure their habitual mental process, I will create more conditions for learners to spontaneously develop language in a discourse level. All teachers can do is manipulate input, negotiation and feedback. In order to optimize these conditions and maximize the amounts of learning that takes place, I will consider getting learners exposed to ample amounts of input from the perspective of quantity and quality. Input should be comprehensible, natural, contextualized and relevant to learners. When creating more opportunities for interaction, there will be negotiation, oral or written. Though three ways (clarification request, confirmation check, comprehension check), teachers further clarify language point to facilitate their understanding of a particular language point. Moreover, when giving learners corrective feedback, I have six different ways, such as explicit correction, clarification requests, metalinguistic feedback, repetition, recasting and elicitation. Learners will have more uptakes after teachers giving corrective feedback. When I was teaching the topic Odd Jobs of CEP, I would first conduct a personality test to make the class more engaging. When introducing grammar point Passive Voice, I would narrow down the topic and theme of my question, and then conduct a more interactive session by asking three specific questions “Describe the changes in your hometown/life/this classroom” to elicit concrete answers. Then students try to describe these specific situations by using more passive voice sentences. This is meaning-focused, task-based and relative to learners. However, creating conditions for students to learn and grasp knowledge spontaneously is quite hard, so is integrating all four skills in the class. Teacher experiences and reflections on teaching can help enrich teaching. Admittedly, processes such as reciting vocabularies, explicit teaching of grammar and conducting structural syllabi would be avoided in TBLT. I support referring to multilayered syllabus, meaning-based teaching, conducting communicative tasks. I will conduct no metalinguistic talk in the classroom teaching, because language is a tool for people to communicate not for reciting rules. A huge PPP teaching (presentation, practice, production) is highly untenable for it is not focused on the use of language. Pouring down loads of information can be counterproductive. I would conduct many small PPPs to crack one by one with concrete and solid practices and interactions. I prefer preparing a PowerPoint in my classroom teaching, for a class needs be to a point and has power. Points can help learners sort things to attain the ultimate goal of learning; it has power, for it strong visual impact. When I was teaching Zambelli Fireworks factory, the video I gave to them could definitely help them learning and left them a strong visual impact.
TBLT (Task-based language teaching) is a development on CLT (communicative language teaching). A task is an activity, which requires learners to use language, with emphasis on meaning, to attain an objective. The way to evaluate their success in terms of outcome is through formative and summative assessment. This will enable learners to identify their own strengths and weaknesses in language learning and enable teachers to provide immediate adjustable strategies to teaching and to achieve some tangible improvements. This can help them shape their learning habits and build on underlying competence.
My teaching and learning experience, as well as my interest and exposure to SLA theories, help frame my teaching philosophy and substantiate the aforementioned beliefs in CLT and TBLT. With that belief in mind, as I increase my teaching experience, research abilities, and reflective thinking, my teaching will help more learners develop their language skills.