Teaching Philosophy
From the first day in the classroom, when I’m standing in front of a new group of students, my foremost goal is to create an atmosphere where students will be motivated to learn the material. As many studies on second language acquisition show, a motivated student is one that has the best chances to succeed. This, I believe, also holds true for culture classes. While there is some disagreement as to what contributes to a motivated student, certain factors appear fairly consistently, including a supportive classroom.
In culture classes as well as language classes, speaking freely and openly is a key component to the class. In my classes, I’ve always encouraged an atmosphere where students can speak without fearing judgment, yet I provide either information that might adjust the viewpoint in a literature course, or in the case of a language course I adjust the feedback to correspond to the activity and prefer to encourage the student to correct their own mistakes by asking “Are you sure about that?”. In this manner, students learn to direct their own process of learning and do so in a trusting environment.
I began teaching in my fourth year of my bachelor degree in a language laboratory and Saturday school for children. This early insecurity and reluctance in those first years gradually shifted to the confident educator I now find myself to be. There are many elements associated with teaching that I find exciting. But the one thing that keeps me coming back to the classroom is the students. Over the course of the semester, I enjoy observing their language capacities grow and develop as well listening to their unique ideas and perspectives that they bring to texts. Even in language courses, students would come forward with texts they had found that might interest me as I would try to bring to them texts that would interest them.
For both types of classes, I believe in varying the activities to accommodate the variety of learners and their abilities that exist in all classes, but also as a method to continually hold their interest and challenge them to approach the material in different ways. With the new innovations in technology, this is made all the easier – at any teacher’s fingertips lays a vast array of different materials to use.
After a certain time teaching, habits develop that can either facilitate learning or can impede it. Part of being a successful educator is reevaluating the methods as well as the explicit and implicit beliefs that one holds. I revitalize my teaching and improve the learner experience by periodically revisiting my teaching philosophy, distributing teaching evaluations to students and talking to colleagues about their experiences teaching or visiting their classes on a regular basis. As a supervised instructor, I’ve had the benefit of this practice and will look forward to continuing to renew myself as an educator.
In culture classes as well as language classes, speaking freely and openly is a key component to the class. In my classes, I’ve always encouraged an atmosphere where students can speak without fearing judgment, yet I provide either information that might adjust the viewpoint in a literature course, or in the case of a language course I adjust the feedback to correspond to the activity and prefer to encourage the student to correct their own mistakes by asking “Are you sure about that?”. In this manner, students learn to direct their own process of learning and do so in a trusting environment.
I began teaching in my fourth year of my bachelor degree in a language laboratory and Saturday school for children. This early insecurity and reluctance in those first years gradually shifted to the confident educator I now find myself to be. There are many elements associated with teaching that I find exciting. But the one thing that keeps me coming back to the classroom is the students. Over the course of the semester, I enjoy observing their language capacities grow and develop as well listening to their unique ideas and perspectives that they bring to texts. Even in language courses, students would come forward with texts they had found that might interest me as I would try to bring to them texts that would interest them.
For both types of classes, I believe in varying the activities to accommodate the variety of learners and their abilities that exist in all classes, but also as a method to continually hold their interest and challenge them to approach the material in different ways. With the new innovations in technology, this is made all the easier – at any teacher’s fingertips lays a vast array of different materials to use.
After a certain time teaching, habits develop that can either facilitate learning or can impede it. Part of being a successful educator is reevaluating the methods as well as the explicit and implicit beliefs that one holds. I revitalize my teaching and improve the learner experience by periodically revisiting my teaching philosophy, distributing teaching evaluations to students and talking to colleagues about their experiences teaching or visiting their classes on a regular basis. As a supervised instructor, I’ve had the benefit of this practice and will look forward to continuing to renew myself as an educator.