Teaching Philosophy

Different students require different approaches to learning

As a Teacher of English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL) educator, the focus of all my lessons is communicative competence. Native-like fluency is an often-unattainable goal of a bygone era when Behaviorists ruled the linguistic land. Instead, I gear my teaching toward communicative competence so that my adult students can achieve linguistic capital in the global marketplace and gain confidence in the development of their English language identities.

My chosen methodology is Communicative Language Teaching (CLT), which focuses on all components of the English language with a heavy emphasis on meaning to promote communicative competence. CLT also situates language learning in the real world, where students are able to understand the pragmatics of language and apply the principles of CLT outside of the class by becoming self-aware in the safety of that very classroom. Influenced in part by philosopher-sociologist Jürgen Habermas’ work in Universal Pragmatics, I believe that my adult students all come to the classroom with the rational tools for speech and action in English. When I provide guided and freer practice for students, they are able to reach a mutual understanding with a potential interlocutor outside of the classroom, which in turn validates their English language identity and their place in the English-speaking world.
CLT recognizes that the most important factor governing a learner’s progress is motivation. It is essential that I am constantly aware of students’ shifting reasons for undertaking the study of English as well as their more concrete goals. More importantly, however, is my duty to remind students not only of their stated goals, but that those goals should be evolving alongside increased abilities and confidence. By promoting self-awareness in learning, I am able to support my students’ nascent English identities, integral to their communicative success.

As Richard Rossner noted in Currents of Change in English Language Teaching (1990), English is no longer the sole property of Anglophone countries. In fact, compared to speakers of English as a foreign language, native speakers of both British and American English are now in the minority. Therefore, communication between non-native English speakers is far more likely than between a non-native and a native speaker. For that reason, it is clear that we should not hark back to the dark days of the Grammar Translation Method for English as a Second or Foreign Language (ESL/EFL) students.

Through CLT, I want instead to encourage students to become autonomous thinkers who can appreciate the multiple perspectives of the classroom and use those experiences out in the real world. To that effect, I use the Socratic Method to constantly challenge students to think critically and explain their answers and their selves in English as they form their English identities.

The Socratic Method also plays a major role in my lesson planning so that I can anticipate errors and ensure rich discussions throughout the course. No answer is complete until a student can answer the question, “why?”

All learning, I believe, should be interactive. Students should not only engage with me as a teacher, but with one another in a variety of roles to experiment with language and take risks in the safety of the classroom. My emphasis on interactive learning comes from my own experience studying French in high school with a teacher named Madame Sand. Madame Sand was an incredible educator not just because she taught us an enormous amount of material each class, or because all of her students passed on to the next level by the end of the year; Madame Sand was great because she was passionate about the French language and her palpable enthusiasm made class time engaging and fun. She brought in films, food and music, and with our eyes, ears, noses, mouths and hands, we too became passionate about all things French. The tactical and sensual experience of eating a baguette with Camembert cheese, watching Amelie with no subtitles, and smelling the sweet scent of a carnation while reading Jean de Florette ensured that we truly comprehended—and had memorable experiences tied to—all that we learned. We interacted not only with each other, but with each of the five senses as they related to language learning.

Language use is culture. The coupling of the two and all their subsequent connections invites travel. I have lived and taught in the USA, South Africa and Vietnam, visiting elsewhere in between. I have taught all ages and levels from general English with four year-olds not yet literate in their native language, to IELTS and TOEFL prep to the 65 year-old editor of the Saigon Times. Experience shapes my approach just as it shapes students' abilities to make connections and strengthen knowledge. As I take on the shifting roles of leader, facilitator, guide and counselor, students so too do my students in an effort to foster autonomy and make them responsible for their own learning. It is this type of student-centered responsibility that leads to a sense of accomplishment that I love to see in my students. It is why I love teaching.