My Teaching Philosophy

My Teaching Philosophy

In this assignment I will reflect on myself as an English teacher and which aspect of English teaching I consider to be of great importance. I will mainly focus on the importance of creating output in the classroom, Communicative language teaching and the benefits of inductive learning.

A very important value for me is having respect for the fact that all language learners are different. Because of this I will try to vary my teaching methods and the content of the classes the best I can, so it can benefit a variety of different learners. It is also vital for me that I encourage my future students to use their metacognition. By encouraging metacognition I can help my students reflect and be more aware regarding which learning methods that work best for them (Ellis & Shintani, p. 26).

I will of course give my future students language input, but I think It is especially important for me that student's create output in my classes. This is because Language acquisition is a creative process where we create our own hypotheses about the language we are trying to learn. When students get the chance to create output through speaking and writing they get a chance to test if their hypotheses about the target language is correct or incorrect (Ellis & Shintani, p.10). Through this process learners can revise their hypotheses which leads to new language learning.

Personally, I like Communicative language teaching because it is a great method to use when you want output from students. CLT is an approach to language teaching where the focus is to develop communicative competence. Ellis & Shintani (2014) describe the strong form of CLT in this way: “ The methodology is fluency oriented-directed at getting students to use language for communication rather than to practice correct usage”(p. 43) Through CLT the students can work with communicative tasks fitted or real life situations and use English authentically. I have tried using this type of teaching in practice, and I have noticed that students often get highly motivated when they get an opportunity to do tasks where they can collaborate and communicate with their peers.

It is also important for me that students are not afraid of speaking English. Many students might fear making mistakes during the English acquisition process. I want to help create a good learning environment where students feel comfortable enough to express themselves in English. Therefore, doing motivating CLT-tasks can make students less self-critical so they “forget” they are speaking English because they get so engaged. After all, learners making mistakes when speaking English is natural and errors are a natural feature of the language learning process (Ellis & Shintani, 2014, p.6).

With heavy subjects like grammar, I think it would be beneficial to use an approach where the students work inductively. Therefore, I will give the students a task and not explicitly tell them which grammar aspects we are going to work with. For example, we might do a task where the students give advice through working with authentic cases of teenagers who have asked for advice on the internet. After the task, I will discuss with the students which type of verbs they used when giving advice, and then explain more in-depth regarding the function of modal verbs when advising. Ellis & Shintani (2014) describe that a benefit of inductive presentation is that: “it involves greater depth of processing which assists memory” (p. 85). From my own experience, working inductively with grammar can be more motivating as opposed to the traditional deductive approach, where the students are told beforehand which grammar aspect to focus on.

All in all, in this paper I have examined some key factors related to English teaching which are important for me. I have discussed the importance of student output and creating a learning environment where the students do not fear making linguistic errors. I have also discussed how I consider CLT a very useful method for language teaching, in addition to the benefits of using an inductive approach when working with heavy subjects like grammar.

Literature:

Ellis, R., & Shintani, N. (2014). Exploring language pedagogy through second language acquisition research. New York, NY: Routledge.

Reflection 4

Reflection 4

I will discuss  the English textbook Stages 10 published by Aschehoug which I used in my teaching practice last year in 10th grade. The texbook is centered around a variety of different topics and texts that help widen the horizon of the students. E.g Indigenous people, The USA today and relations. Each topic has different texts and exercises related to the topic in question. Next to each text there is a glossary with difficult words from the text.

I think this is a really good book, because it contains such a variety of topics, so every students might find a topic they find interesting. There are also a variety of activities, related to grammar, role play, vocabulary and class discussions, so there are not just writing activities for the students to try out. In my teaching practice they read an excerpt from Romeo and Juliet and the book contained many activities related to the excerpt, like writing, discussion and dramatization. We did mos of these activities in class and I think the students appreciated that they got to try out a variety of activities.

A negative aspect might be that some of the texts are long and contain a lot of information about complicated political issues e.g immigration. So I think this book might be a bit challenging for students who struggle with reading long English texts. But all in all, I really like the variety of topics activities included in the book, especially the creative activities.

Reflection 3

Reflection 3

Personally, I favor communicative language teaching when you work with grammar. First of all, in my experience students think it`s fun to use language in an authentic way to interact with their fellow students to complete task. They get to use the language in an authentic way, which means that they get to practice the with the knowledge they already like they would in the real world. Communicative language teaching is great for learning heavier content like grammar, and I think this is a better way to learn about this topic than traditional grammar drills. Communicative language practice also allows you to  let the students work inductively, which I think more interesting for students. This can be achieved by starting the lesson and not saying which specific grammar of aspect that the students will work on, they might get have a task based on giving advice an afterwards realise that they have also practiced using modal verbs.

I also like the fact that CLT is mainly based on communicative activities where the students interact with one another. I think this can be very motivating because I students get more easily tired when they have to, in many classes, only listen to the teacher. I`d also like for the students to work with bigger projects, where they can have some choice with regards to which topics they want to explore. This can be achieved through e.g creating a class magazine. Not every student loves writing but by creating a magazine every student can contribute in some way

Reflection 2

Reflection 2

I remember that we did a lot of text reading, but we also did a lot of teacher-centered mechanical grammar drilling (audiolingual method). I personally thought this was a very uninspiring way if working with grammar. I liked when we were allowed to work on bigger projects, like choosing a topic getting to present it to the rest of the class. I  

I wish I had communicative language teaching when I went to school. Communicative language teaching, is a type of teaching where one encourages students to communicate with one another in an authentic way by doing different tasks. I don't think I was ever exposed to it, because I mostly remember my English lessons to be mostly teacher-centered. At school, we also had the typical glossary tests, where the teacher would choose some words we were supposed to learn each week. Personally, I found this a bit meaningless and mechanical, because we didn't learn to use the words in the right context anyway, we simply memorized them The glossary tests were common from primary school and through high school. I also don`t remember being given clear learning objectives, and I rarely received formative evaluations from my English teachers. I thought this was annoying because texts can become so much better when you can submit draft papers before the final grade. So, formative evaluation is definitely something I will try to give my future students so they get a chance to improve their English texts.

Reflection 1

My teaching philosophy

I find most of the 11 principles very important, but I would like to especially emphasize the importance of principle 7, which is “Successful instructed language learning also requires opportunities for output”. I find this aspect especially important. Because student learn language in a creative way. When student learn a second language they acquire many hypotheses about the target language e.g concerning verb conjugation. When student either write or speak in their second language, they get to test these hypotheses .Through producing language output, the student`s get more experience with using the language creatively and independently. This way, the  students have the chance to either keep or reject their hypotheses about the language in a more effective way, and therefore learn more than if they just receive input.

I also think principle 4 is important because implicit knowledge of the L2 is essential for being able to communicate in a fluent way. If you don`t have implicit knowledge of the language it will be difficult to communicate quickly enough for fluency. At the same time one should not neglect explicit language teaching because it's important that students have a meta-language (language about language). When students understand the system of the L2,  they can compare it to their L1 and understand the similarities and differences. This can be beneficial considering one often has a better comprehension of the L1.

I also think prinicple 9 is important, because all students are different, and one type of L2 teaching  might not be educational for everybody. Student learn in different ways and different tempos. It`s vital that a teacher is flexible  and try out many different types of language teaching. It can be especially helpful if teachers are able to help the students develop their meta-cognitive ability. This can help them be more aware of what language- learning strategies work for them. This principle is important, because if one is not aware these individual differences you might have some students falling behind, and not being able to benefit from your teaching.