My Educational Philosophy
As a teacher, I believe that students should be equipped with knowledge and skills to achieve the most of learning process. I reckon that knowledge should be authentic and worth learning, that is the gap between the learning content and the carrier content minimized to the most (Littlejohn, 1997)[1]. This, so far I believe, results in a logically coherent knowledge that touches upon students interests and needs. Moreover, it is a privilege to equip learners with basic and contemporary needs such as 21st century skills- team work, time management, etc.- as well as linguistic and metacognitive skills towards learning as a whole.
There is no doubt that school curriculum is an assigned task by educational policy makers. However, I strongly believe that both teachers and students should be active parties to fill in missed learning needs; contribute to the learning content according to students’ unique backgrounds, skills and capabilities. Such a process targets two domains; first, it satisfies their lacks and wants. Second, it gives students room to foster autonomy over their learning. I often ask my students about their favourite task type or choose their favourite topic for presentation. I also take their opinions into account if they like or not certain reading in the textbook or change it with a different passage from other resources. Providing my students with alternatives at different levels of importance is a pleasing task to me though it demands preplanning and risk calculation.
Parents are part of the learning process, so they should not be not deprived the opportunity to take part in their children education. From my personal experience, some parents stress upon certain skills like writing and speaking to cultivate and better refine. To trace parents’ concerns in terms of their children’s skills, expected content and other issues, I often contact parents in three main phases, at the beginning of the year, before midterms, and before finals. In brief, authority, teachers, students and parents do collaboratively contribute to decide what should be taught to accomplish the utmost benefit of education.
From my point of view, teaching and learning should be approached by considering students motivation, social construction of knowledge, humanistic learning atmosphere and students diverse intelligence. Research has proven that learning a second language is a demanding task. It demands clear motive and consciousness unlike the natural acquisition of first language. Therefore, motivation is one key factor of language acquisition success where students are expected to exert a great deal of effort to be proficient and or autonomous language users. Being an enthusiastic teacher does influence students’ motivation since I believe teacher’s motivation is infectious. Students motivation can be sparked in different ways- from calling them with their favorite names to complementing their work and from giving them a star sticker to displaying their achievement on the classroom wall. Maintaining a motivating environment helps students to work hard and achieve better based on my personal observation.
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I believe that students can learn more when their learning experience occurs in a social context. As Vygotsky 1962 proposed that learning best occurs when students are cognitively engaged with others, encounter contextualized knowledge and psychologically secured within group- the notion of ZPD. In fact, there is not a shadow of doubt that students are social in nature, so learning should not deprive them one of their innate features. I personally vary classroom tasks where students can opt to learn in groups of different sizes. I usually design group hands on activities for grammar aspects, for instance, as it is one of the challenging areas to my students. Students tend to retain the knowledge better when they think together and when they are challenged in a well-planned way to discover.
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This brings the focus to my perception of students as unique individuals who harbor diverse skills, experiences and knowledge which is an overarching feature of teaching. In a humanistic learning environment, I believe, students learn better and achieve most if value is given to their cognitive abilities, freedom of choice and knowledge discovery. Drawing from my students’ previous knowledge, through brainstorming for example, is a sacred routine before tackling a new unit, new reading or writing a composition. I strongly believe in appreciating their background knowledge since this has proven to raise my students’ motivation as well as it brings them willingly to the content. Moreover, developing sense of ownership towards students learning is of crucial value to me, as it results in autonomous learners and language users. No matter how big or small the decision is, students highly value considering their voices. Thus, due dates, tasks’ type, nature of projects, classroom grouping and seating, on floor or on chairs, and worksheets’ color is always subject to negotiation in my classroom.
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I reckon that students possess cognitive abilities that helps them induce different language patterns, structures, collocations, meaning from context. Inductive reasoning is one of the fundamental practices of language discovery. Teaching students through the inductive approach to foster discovering knowledge occurs frequently in my classroom. One mean I usually go for is incidental noticing and directed noticing through prompts and scaffolding questions. In short, considering motivation, social construction of knowledge, and maintaining a humanistic atmosphere arrive at addressing the students multiple intelligences so far as the practice of these approaches meet their intention.
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I believe that the more students are engaged with their learning process the more they achieve and retain. Thus, students must not be passive recipients of knowledge. However, empowered with freedom of choice, involving them in decision making, deriving from their personal and or prior knowledge is crucial to their learning. The students are expected to negotiate meaning, confirm knowledge, agree and disagree with opinions as part of learning and autonomous language use to the maximum possible.
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On the other hand, it is teacher’s responsibility to enable students become life-long learners. This, as I believe, can be aided by increasing a good deal of hands on and locus of control over their learning. The teacher facilitates students learning with the knowledge and skills that they need, want and lack while considering their discrepancies at all terms. The teacher, therefore, should encompasses comprehensive knowledge of subject matter and teaching skills.
[1] Littlejohn, A. (1997). Language learning tasks and education. English Teaching
Professional, 6.
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