My Teaching Philosophy

Teaching Philosophy

     My teaching philosophy developed as a result of my experiences in English Language Teaching field through four year undergraduate education program in METU. My thoughts and beliefs concerned with teaching matter as a candidate of teacher shaped in the wake of courses that I have been taking four years and my teaching experiences, whereby I have learned a lot about what needs to be done in order to be a well qualified English teacher. My first teaching experience started with a community service program, actually I do not admit it as a real teaching experience, since my students were just like classmates of me and there was not a hierarchy to feel themselves serious against me. Whereas, the first time I felt myself as a real teacher was when I began to tutor a young learner. My teaching experiences gained through tutoring were greatly contributed me to make a decision about my future plans. In addition, I attended an internship program in a primary school, which also helped me to reinforce my beliefs related to profession. I was very lucky about training in a primary school, as I was always more interested in working with young learners. Thus, my training and tutoring experiences gave a direction to my future career and my teaching philosophy emerged out of all these experiences.

     Firstly, I believe that an English teacher should only use English to communicate with students in the class or outside the class, unless it is very necessary to use native language. Turnbull (2001) acknowledges that even if the main aim is not the use of English exclusively, teachers should communicate in the target language at a maximum rate in the classroom.

The teacher should not allow students to have a confidence in using their native language; instead they should be able to communicate in the target language in order that they become competent at using the target language rather than just learning and memorizing its grammar rules and list of vocabularies. They may feel frustrated and have difficulty in using it at the beginning, but in time they will be accustomed to communicating their needs in English. MacDonald (1993) mentions that learners will feel the success and enjoyment of using the language after they see that they can comprehend and use it, which will be provide an easier language acquisition process. However, education of English in our country stays with teaching grammar and vocabulary through mostly reading texts and exercises that are just focused on preparing students for the coming exams rather than including communicativeness. When it comes to listening, speaking and writing parts, there is not an adequate time to cover all these skills. It may be also because the rest of the skills are more time consuming and challenging compared to grammar and vocabulary teaching, therefore these skills are mostly ignored in our schools. Nonetheless, I want to draw attention to the point of teaching all the skills in a balanced way instead of just focusing on grammar and vocabulary teaching so that students can be counted as completely competent at the target language since just knowing the language without applying it to real life would mean nothing to learners apart from succeeding in the exams. At the end of an education program, learners suppose that they learn and know English, but they are unable to produce even a sentence when speaking comes forward. Most of the students know all the rules and get the enough knowledge of vocabulary, but they do not know how to use what they have learned. Indeed, this is the main problem of English Language Teaching. In order to overcome such a trouble, I consider that English teacher should be a role model of students communicating through English all the time, namely instead of native language English should be used as a medium of communication both by students and teacher. MacDonald (1993) states that target language should be always a communication tool to motivate learners to notice that they can also start to use the target language. Furthermore, learning process should not be restricted to just classroom and language learning should also continue outside of the class as well, because mastering the language is possible adding it totally to learners’ lives, an English rich atmosphere can be created to use the language efficiently in this way, and thus learners can manage to go beyond of the borders of grammar and vocabulary. Teacher can give some extra assignments or responsibilities to students except for in class activities. For instance, writing a diary, reading magazines, books or newspapers, watching TV serials with English subtitle etc. can be a good way to improve their proficiency because they are also exposed to use the language in their daily lives as well as in the class. I have mentioned the importance of ability of use the language actively in the life rather than just having the knowledge. The last point I want to add is that students should be aware of the importance of English speaking ability, namely they should know why they have to speak in English when their native language is easier to use. Therefore, an English teacher should raise the awareness by giving messages about its advantages and its contributions to their career plans in the future.

     Second, I think that it is essential to attract the attention of students into the lesson and gain their interest in the lesson, whereby learners’ active participation can be enabled to make them use the target language effectively. This aim can be achieved on the condition that an English teacher makes the lessons more entertaining and learner- centered. Johnson (1991) and Maxwell (1998) claimed that learner centered education will benefit in increasing the motivation for learning and enabling greater satisfaction with the lesson; and both of these results will be a reason for greater success of students. Hence, they can find English lessons very boring, if they just have to listen to teacher or follow the course book. Instead of learner passivity, they should be actively involved in the lessons by including lots of student centered tasks that are reinforcing the learner autonomy such as pair or group work, games, songs, flash cards etc. Engaging variety of different tasks in the class will be addressing to different learning styles of the learners as well as supporting learner autonomy. Teacher should be aware of difference between learning styles of students, since Bedford (2004) emphasizes that matching or mismatching of instruction methods with learning styles of students will greatly affect the learning power (The Matching Hypothesis). If the teacher just adheres to his/her own style and ignores the other types; learning can be really difficult for the learners. On the other hand, being aware of the differences will help students to build self confidence in learning, so they can manage learning more easily. According to this point of view, Gardner (1985) identifies the following types of learning which are visual, auditory, tactile and kinesthetic. For example, while some of them can comprehend the points through visuals better, some learners can be good at understanding audio based activities. According to Multiple Intelligence theory of Gardner, he (2006) says that someone who exhibits a particular ability in one of that intelligence does not have to show necessarily the same aptitude in the rest of them. Therefore, an English teacher should not forget different styles of learning, so s/he needs to prepare or present variety of tasks to appeal to learners’ interests. More realistic tasks should be also provided for learners in order that they have something to talk about it, namely they can actively communicate in the language. There should be a connection between the things they learn and their lives, Alexander and Murphy (2000) assert that already knowledge of a person helps him to organize and represent the new information and it also helps to determine what is important or relevant. I want to also make an addition to this point. If a student can connect information to present, I think more permanent learning will be accomplished. Thus, tasks should reflect the real life to some extent so that their experiences can be integrated into the lesson to enable their active engagement in the class and to achieve lifelong learning. Applying what they have learned to the real life would provide learners with more concrete results and I believe that such enjoyable and authentic activities will really increase their motivation and they will be more willing to learn and use the language.

     Finally, I want to state that English teachers should never give up advancing themselves. They should always read books, articles or follow the latest news about the theories or methodologies related to English Language Teaching field. They need to be in the search of finding better ways to upgrade themselves, so self reflection will be an essential process in order to see their missing. In this regard, students’ comments and feedback through questionnaires can be also really beneficial to better themselves as well as being open to news related to field. Therefore, in order to be an effective teacher, lifelong learning should be in the foreground and teachers should always strive to learn something new, as there is not a border to be accepted as an expert teacher even if they graduate. Richert (1990) admits that ability to make an evaluation about the past and current actions are significant to intelligent practice that is reflective rather than routine. Reflection has a great influence on professional development and learning from one’s experiences, so I believe that being a reflective teacher is an important fact in the professional life to be able to better rather than just sticking to old values.

References

·         Alexander, P., & Murphy, P. (2000). The research base for APA's leaner-centered psychological principles. In N. Lambert, & B. McCombs (Eds.). How students learn (pp. 25-60). Washington, D.D.: American Psychological Association.

• Bedford, T. A. (2004). Learning styles: a review of literature (first draft). Toowoomba,  OPACS, The University of Southern Queensland.

• Gardner, H. (1985). Frames of mind: The theory of  multiple intelligences. New York: Basic  Books Inc.

·         Johnson, W. D. (1991). Student-student interaction: The neglected variable in education. Educational Research, 10(1), 5-10.

·         MacDonald, C. (1993). Using the target language. Cheltenham, UK: Mary Glasgow

Publications.

·         Maxwell, W. E. (1998). Supplemental instruction, learning communities and students studying together. Community College Review (Fall), retrieved December 20, 2005 from findarticles.com 

·         Richert, A. E. (1990).  Teaching teachers to reflect: A consideration of programme structure.  Journal of Curriculum Studies, 22(6), 509-527.

·         Turnbull, M. (2001b). There is a role for the L1 in second and foreign language teaching, but . . . The Canadian Modern Language Review, 57, no. 4, 531-540.