My Teaching approach:
Learning a language is more than learning a language, more than a code of structures and translations. With each phrase and word, doors are opened into the lives and cultures of everyone that share this breathing, living method of communication. Like the great film director Federico Fellini once said: “a different language is a different vision of life.”
If you can only understand the English language then you are incapable of speaking to 80 percent of the world (6 billion people). And we are the lucky ones! If your only language should be Japanese for example (the 9th most spoken language in the world), then you would be incapable of speaking to 98.2 percent of human beings alive today. Our words grant us communication, communication builds relationships, and relationships are one of the main necessities, rewards and goals of life. In other words, learning a language is very rewarding and powerful.
I have recently become aware of this unique hora language has. A totally new way of expressing ones self. It frees the mind to communicate afresh, each word contains a bank of cultural and emotional meaning and because of this I believe a person adopts a slightly different persona in each language. Some people even say that one is unable to truly express ones self until he knows two languages. Although teaching is a very new experience for me, I am passionate about sharing my knowledge of English with people who want to learn. It is my job as a teacher to get students speaking English to the best of their ability, yet equally or maybe even more important in my eyes is portraying the beauty of learning another language and keeping each student motivated to do so. After all, one won’t progress if one doesn’t see the need to. Greater desire leads to greater action.
The first lesson with any student is, for me, primarily to understand their English level, their interests in life and their motivations for learning. With these things in mind it becomes easier to create a more personalised and effective syllabus. I believe in two vital factors that I would always include within my teaching at any level or ability: the only language spoken is English, and the only topics talked about are interesting for the student. It is obvious that total submersion has greater benefits to learning and so, through the communicative approach this atmosphere can be replicated in lessons. Combining this with a topic a student has a passion for, demands them to strain their brain to express what they want to. If the subject matters to them, they will be more concerned about conveying there opinion accurately and therefor pushing their English speaking to greater levels. If the topic of the lesson is not interesting, the student will be less concerned about sharing their opinion and in turn, will be less concerned about answering correctly. This is easier to achieve with more advanced speakers as a range of new vocabulary and structures can be incorporated into many different topics, but for young learners with little knowledge some different methods must also be included. For early learners I think it remains of great benefit to maintain a direct approach, using solely English, but also including a large amount of physical actions and repetition. Total physical response aids understandings as well as interest. Using actions to express emotions for example, will profoundly increase links between words and meaning. Combine this with visual input as well and low-level students can learn very quickly.
My classroom environment is very important to me also. There must be an optimum environment for productive learning. I believe students need to feel secure, this is expressed in Maslow’s hierarchy. He suggests that before the need of learning can be addressed there are a foundation of other needs that must be satisfied first for example: survival, safety, comfort, belonging, love and self-esteem. When all these are satisfied a student can then begin to learn. Much like in the suggestopedia teaching approach (developed by Georgi Lozanov), I love to have relaxing music playing in the background. Music can change atmospheres and will help satisfy the ‘safety’ level of the hierarchy. Furthermore, I like to build repour with my students, encouraging them and showing interest in their lives to maintain their self-esteem. Vygotsky (an advocate for social constructivism) suggested that everything we learn is from social interaction and community. Therefore, it is important for me that for most of the lesson students feel as though they are having meaningful conversation rather than just speaking for learnings sake. We work together rather than they work for me. I enjoy a relaxed environment. Correction of mistakes can also have a big impact on self-esteem and consequently can be quite an art to master. In general, low level students need a high self-esteem and confidence to progress faster. With this in mind, correction after the student has finish their sentence is in their best interests unless it is a grammar mistake which should be gently corrected straight away. The volume of correction you are dishing out can be an indicator of how challenging an activity is for the student. I aim to make my activities a challenge but not excessively so; this will impair learning and exceed the ‘zone of proximal development’ a theory that the same Vygotsky proposed. There is a zone in which the level of challenge must dwell in; too high or low and the student will progress at a slower rate.
When I was at school language didn’t interest me at all. I even chose not to study it! I had no concept that the world was bigger than the small town I lived in or the unique value a second language holds. How could I have interpreted the gift of language as such a boring, needless possession? For one, the teacher only taught boring exercises to help memorise words and never once did we get the opportunity to see or speak to a real native! (French, Spanish, or German person). For this reason, one exciting thing that is really effective, is to make use of real life scenarios where speaking English is a necessity. When covering topics such as ‘directions’, ‘conference calls/appointments’, ‘buying things’ etc call an English friend, if possible, who pretends to be the secretary/ delivery man etc. In This way a real-life scenario can be produced and students experience using their new language in a real situation. By doing this, students can ‘assimilate’ their existing schemas of knowledge and broaden their experience of speaking. This is greatly influenced by the constructivism approach to learning, suggesting that what we learn is through experience and not from passive learning.
A typical Lesson of mine what be structured like this
I will not ‘give homework’ as it were, but I would like all my students to have vocabulary book in which they write down new vocabulary and each must find 5 new words of their choice to add during their week/free time. these will be observed at the end of the lesson. I am currently learning Spanish myself and have my own vocab book, in addition I have set my phone and laptop settings into Spanish as well, it is great fun talking to Siri! This will be obligatory for all my students (who own phones and laptops)
