My Teaching Philosophy

Through previous experience teaching and observing in the classroom, I have found that
students respond best to teaching that inspires a sense of personal responsibility alongside a
desire to grow as a community. In order to cultivate these characteristics as well as gain students
respect, teachers must work to build a classroom environment that makes students feel cared for
and listened to. In my experience as a second language learner of French and Spanish, feeling
acknowledged and appreciated by my teacher was the driving force behind my commitment to
participate in class as well as continue my studies outside of class. To cultivate this rapport,
teachers should maintain a balance between teacher-student interaction and student-student
interaction. I also believe that learning should not begin and end in the classroom, but be a
catalyst for student growth, curiosity, and practice on their own time. Since learning can and
should continue outside of the classroom, providing students with new and engaging ways to
practice their language skills is essential. By supplying authentic materials such as newspapers
and academic articles tailored to students proficiency levels and technological resources such as
useful websites (e.g. getkahoot.com) and even smartphone applications (e.g. duolingo), students
can stay engaged and motivated to learn outside of the classroom.
As an educator I have found that encouraging a student-centered learning environment
that invites students to learn from each other and not just from the teacher, generates perspectives
and explanations that would have otherwise been left untapped. A classroom where students feel
comfortable enough to assist one another creates a sense of community that nurtures cooperation
and growth. In language classrooms, the teacher should enable students to competently produce
linguistic structures by scaffolding any new material and facilitating situations where students
can support and collaborate with their peers to complete meaningful and authentic tasks. Student
interactions should allow for the negotiation of meanings, as well as development of language at
the suprasentential level. While teaching linguistic forms is essential for language learning,
acquiring the productive capabilities to use those forms competently is what translates to
successful applicability. The duties of the teacher are to provide proficiency-level appropriate
activities where all four skills are targeted, authentic and relevant materials are used, and
collaboration is encouraged. A focus on fluency to increase students communication skills, as
well as accuracy training to develop their vocabulary and grammar, should be incorporated into
these tasks.
I believe critical pedagogy is a central approach when teaching a language because there
are social and political issues surrounding a languages role in that countrys culture.
Encouraging awareness about important issues in their community helps second language
learners develop a deeper appreciation of their native language along with English and how they
both contribute to societal affairs. It is imperative for teachers not to impose their personal
opinions and beliefs about social and political issues on their students, but inspire exploration
and investigation of issues that students personally find meaningful. Students are not empty
vessels for information, but come with prior experiences, as well as intellectual strengths and
weaknesses that affect their language learning. Teachers should work to incorporate various
techniques that utilize students specific learning styles (e.g. logical, visual, body, musical,
inter/intrapersonal, verbal, or aural). Classroom activities should emphasize student development
in a number of these intelligences so they have every possibility to succeed in their strengths and
develop their weaknesses. The students are in charge of their own learning, so it is the teachers
job to introduce meaningful materials, provoke critical social and self-awareness, and provide
opportunities for every type of student to succeed in learning a second language.
For language teachers, professional development is an integral part of this constantly
evolving profession. Growing through research of methodological advancements, collaborative
discussions of teaching pedagogy, and self-evaluation, can combat stagnation in the classroom
and in teaching approaches. Professional development should promote discourse between
colleagues about their experiences implementing different techniques in their lessons and sharing
ideas of how to progress as instructors. Teachers should participate in self-evaluation through
journal entries reflecting on daily lesson success, as well as ask for outside assessments of their
teaching abilities by their fellow educators. Teaching is not an individual occupation, and I have
every intention of participating in professional development independently and with my
coworkers by researching new teaching strategies, approaches, and methods through reading
relevant journals (e.g. TESOL Quarterly) thereby maintaining my commitment to continuous
advancement. I will continue to attend and present at conferences such as CoTESOL and
TESOL, in addition to participating in workshops and seminars. These habits will further
develop my teaching skills and enrich my job performance and satisfaction within my career.
Setting attainable and measurable goals, instructional objectives, and learning outcomes
are essential in planning and designing assessments of students communicative language abilities
(e.g. language knowledge and strategic competence). These learning outcomes can be realized
through using Blooms six taxonomy categories (i.e. knowledge, understanding, application,
analysis, synthesis, and evaluation) to determine if students can demonstrate their competency in
the objectives we have chosen to direct our teaching. I believe a combination of traditional and
alternative methods should be incorporated to formatively and summatively assess students
progress along the way as well as evaluate their final product or achievement. In order to gather
information to create an assessment, a construct (i.e. a description of a concept) must be created
to explain a certain behavior or ability such as grammatical competence, and then this construct
must be operationalized (i.e. the task specifications and how the construct can be measured).
Specifications based on the students target language use domain (TLU) must be taken into
consideration in order to adequately select appropriate tasks with similar features to this end
goal. Some of these features are the characteristics of input, the setting, the rubric, and the
expected response. The fundamental purpose of classroom assessments is to obtain reliable,
useful, and valid information in order to provide a better learning experience for our students as
well as inform us of where our students abilities lie.