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The basis of my teaching philosophy nests upon my ideas of learning. My foreign language learning seems never ending. I have been always fascinated by the sounds, by the sentence structures and expressions, by the cultural aspect of foreignness, and by people who speak other languages than my native tongue, Japanese. I spent eight years studying English as a foreign language from 7th grade to college level. I took French courses as my second foreign language in my first college year. I studied because I liked foreignness and it was compulsory, therefore I did not learn much. In my second year, I started to teach myself Spanish. I spent a great amount of time taking notes and talking to native Spanish speakers in Japan. My belief of learning then was that I really had to be interested in the subject and the subject should be meaningful in order to learn well. Since I came to the United States, I have taken Spanish (first, second, & third year), Chinese (Mandarin, first, second, & third year), and German (first year) classes. I even had a chance to go to Ecuador for six weeks of summer language program in my junior year. During these years, I slightly changed my idea of learning. I thought learning takes place if it is fun, relaxing (McLaughlin's low affective filter), little by little at a time (McLaughlin's i + 1), and includes real life experience. However, I made a major revision of my learning philosophy after I matriculated to graduate school. My first two years passed by like a shooting star. I spent my years being overwhelmed by the high expectations from my professors and building a foundation in my fields, linguistics and language pedagogies (Teaching English to the Speakers of Other Languages and Teaching Japanese as a Foreign Language). I was scared to go to classes to be singled out for my opinions. Because of this fear, I studied hard and prepared myself well before class. This led me to tackle graduate level courses. My third year was more relieving. I believe that my first two years of training finally began to pay off. I gradually started to realize that my professors were not so mean and cruel; rather they were trying to be supportive. It took me three years to have a feeling of achievement in my academic career, but I have never felt so good. Because of the two years of hard and difficult training, my determination to succeed was even greater. As a result, I feel successful and competent because I enjoy my teaching and conversations on pedagogies and linguistics with my professors. Now, I have earned chances to teach in many settings and subjects, and I feel more confident of what I do. And I believe this is what I wish my students to become: competent, confident, goal-oriented. |
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To me the definition of success is an accomplishment and an achievement of something that is meaningful and something that is obtained after overcoming obstacles and hardships. If there is no feeling of accomplishment in learning, there is no hunger for learning. Therefore, students�f learning successfully takes place when students have motivation, a challenging spirit, discipline, and a feeling of achievement. To lead the students to this successful learning moment, I, as a teacher, should provide an enriched learning environment, so they can reach personal goals. I also strongly argue that it is important to keep trying. I believe in the term "practice makes better". I do not want my students to make a quick conclusion about their ability and give up easily. In order to avoid such consequence, a teacher should recognize and support their strengths and facilitate their learning process. Therefore, my lesson plan begins with the review of old materials and the overview of upcoming material. If at least half of the class is ready, then I move on to the new material one thing at a time from a general picture of the subject to more a detailed one. I like expansion and elaboration of the material with lots of repetitions. I implement pair exercises, group exercises, and individual exercises in my lesson plans. Some activities involve physical movements and competitive games. I also incorporate different types of learning aids for students who have different learning preferences, such as visual aids, listening exercises, work sheets, physical exercises, etc. I have everyone in my classroom verbally contribute at least once. This is my way of checking on my students' efforts as well as skills. Because my students know that I will be spotting them individually, and I will have everyone participate, students will be prepared for my class. Furthermore, I create many rituals in my class, things that I do always. One of the examples is to ask students what is on the syllabus for the day. I always become excited when my students are late for my class, so I can teach them to knock the classroom door twice, say "excuse me" in Japanese, and come in after I tell them to come in. Rituals create real life experience with the target language with purpose. Yet, the optimal learning has to occur with a teacher's appropriate guidance and students' effort. My role as a teacher is to be my students' experience provider as well as their facilitator. I want to provide a class that is challenging and I want to be supportive. |
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