Teaching Philosophy

I had the opportunity to study different schools of thought and theories about human learning during my years of study. I have developed my own belief of how a human learns and how language teachers should target the needs of the learners. I have an eclectic view of the three major schools of thought. I tend to lean more to the constructivist approach. My definition of an effective teaching/learning experience is where a teacher serves as a facilitator rather than a dictator, creating a student-centered environment. I believe that a student could construct their own knowledge if the facilitator provides the correct instruments to create a learning experience in where the students can relate the new knowledge with background knowledge. The process of teaching/learning is an active and interactive one. I believe that learning is a social activity and that it should be contextualized. Other school of thought that has influenced me is the cognitive psychology that is link with constructivism. I am a firm believer that humans are equipped with a device to learn language proposed by Noam Chomsky that enables us to acquire a second language when a learner is engaged in experiences of natural communication and authentic input. I also adopt the theory of Meaningful Learning of Ausubel because in my experience as a student I learned effectively when the material was related to my reality and as a student teacher the learners showed more interest in the lesson when the material was meaningful to their reality. During the Practice Teaching I noticed that students are not used to activities in where they need it to engage in order to produce knowledge. Students are used to a banking education in where the teacher provides the knowledge and they memorized the data without any source of ownership. I had to include aspects of behaviorism. I believe now that the students need some kind of stimulus to obtain the desired response from the learners. Rewarding our students gives them motivation to learn. I believe in the power of knowing the students profile in order to target their needs and in this way adapting multiple intelligences, Howard Gardner, to my methodology to provide them individualized learning experiences. An excellent teacher also study all the factors that may affect the students’ performance like the biological factors or the environment in where the student is growing in order to target their needs in the classroom. There should be a bond between the teacher and a student because we, as teachers, are in the education business to be agent of changes. Therefore, a teacher has to be humanistic and visualize the student as a person with feelings rather than a product that needs to be manufactured. Other aspect to become an excellent teacher is to avoid teaching to the test so I believe that the best way to assess a students’ learning is through authentic assessment in where they perform their knowledge through the tasked language art. Student should see the process of evaluation in order to self -monitor to improve in the way. I am teaching a generation that speaks a different language and in order to reach each one of them I need to speak their language. This generation of students speaks the language of technology. If I want to apply appropriately this teaching philosophy I need to integrate technology to my teaching methods. My full commitment to be an agent of change concentrates my efforts to celebrate the diversity, empower creativity, and promote leadership and social transformation. I believe teaching profession is the most important one because we are the shapers of the future of our students. In this way we are responsible for many aspects of the future world.