Philosophy of Teaching

 

To acquire a second language, one cannot simply just study the language and its grammar. Rather, people need to study the language, practice communication, and learn about the surrounding culture. In my opinion, students best acquire another language by immersing themselves within the language. By listening to the second language and speaking in it, students develop the ability to communicate in the second language. Overtime, they become more proficient in the second language by communicating about various topics. Eventually, they could even achieve fluency like native speakers. Therefore, people who want to acquire a second language must immerse themselves in the second language through communication as much as possible. For example, someone could discuss the history of French colonization throughout the world and the different emerging dialects of French from colonization. By encouraging discussion primarily in the second language, students more easily become able to express themselves and discuss with other students. As a result, they develop proficiency and fluency.

 

Within a world language classroom, students have a prime opportunity to acquire a second language, and they could best acquire it through continuous communication. As a second language teacher, I want to ensure everyone practices communicating in the second language as much as possible. To accomplish this, I set an expectation that both my students and myself speak predominantly in the second language. By communicating mostly in the second language, students receive even more comprehensible input and opportunities to communicate within the second language. In other words, they immerse themselves in what the second language should commonly sound like. As a result, they only gain more opportunities to listen and to communicate within the second language, both of which would help them achieve proficiency and fluency in the second language.

 

In a world language classroom, students should communicate the most since they are the ones attempting to acquire the language. To promote this, I believe the role of the teacher should be to provide the students with numerous opportunities to use the second language. Instead of simply lecturing the students about the nature of the second language, the teacher should moderate activities in which students practice communication in the second language with one another. In addition, the teacher should provide instruction predominantly to clarify proper use of the second language instead of speaking the most in the class. In other words, the role of a second language teacher should be a “guide on the side” instead of a “sage on the stage.” In my world language classroom, I create these kinds of activities and provide students with time to practice communicating in the target language. Afterwards, I then ask them a series of questions and allow them to respond, giving them more opportunities to practice target language use.

 

As a second language teacher, I moderate the students’ ability to communicate in the target language. To promote more interaction within the second language, I evaluate students based upon their creativity with the language. Rather than simply checking to see if students use the language’s grammar properly, I evaluate their ability to express themselves within the second language and their ability to create their own language. In other words, I evaluate students based upon their performance in the second language rather than their accuracy. Since evaluating one’s interactions within the second language may be somewhat abstract, I use a rubric to provide examples of ideal communication within the target language. If a student both follows an assignment’s guidelines and challenges themselves to create their own unique, meaningful language, then they would excel in my second language classes.