My teaching philosophy has been heavily influenced by an old Japanese proverb: To teach is to learn. As an English language teacher, I believe that the classroom should be a place where creative ideas are conceived, where our students learn lessons in tolerance, humility, and cross-cultural awareness, where both faculty and students embark on the journey of knowledge and wisdom by forging an intellectual alliance, where every individual is dedicated to the interactive process of teaching and learning, and where our students become better citizens by setting higher objectives for themselves.
English language teachers must envisage pedagogy, which furthers these principles, fostering non-obtrusive teaching styles through the following methodology. The educational institutional offering English language courses invests authority in the teacher to impart knowledge to adult language learners, both native and non-native speakers, through a variety of pedagogical techniques. The teacher facilitates a conducive learning atmosphere by discouraging passive learning styles and by encouraging active student participation. Curricular goals for each level of proficiency are clearly defined and assist both the teacher and the students in improving reading, writing, listening, and speaking skills. Collectively, the teacher and the students isolate and resolve linguistic insecurities, using a wide range of heuristic aids.
The great twentieth-century teacher, Gilbert Highet, once reasoned, “You must [be able to] think, not what you know, but what they do not know; not what you find hard, but what they will find hard; then, after putting yourself in their minds, obstinate or puzzled, groping or mistaken as they are, explain what they need to learn.” English language teachers must continually strive to locate impediments to linguistic growth. I fervidly believe that complacency hinders professional development. Therefore, vigilantly breaking new ground, we must plumb the depth of the psychology of language learning, contructing bold new sensitivities to unperceived and formerly intractable problems of English language learning.
As a two way process, communication involves comprehension and production abilities. Thus, becoming proficient in a second language (L2) requires achieving balanced skills in reading, listening, speaking, and writing. To reach this balance, L2 learners need to be placed at the center of an integrated approach in which they can acquire and develop all of these skills. As English as a Second Language (ESL) teachers, we have a pivotal role in facilitating the learner’s development of balanced skills since it is in our classroom where they can actually work with the language and in the language. It is in our classes where they can get the input and the encouragement to achieve overall langauge competence for which they strive.
Since communicative competence involves knowledge of and ability to use language, it is essential to motivate L2 learners to communicate in English so that they can begin to internalize the rules of language use. The ability to determine what is appropriate language based on contextual factors that frame an interaction, written or oral, is as important as the ability to produce and interpret language accurately. Our primary responsibility then is to empower L2 learners to develop their skills by exposing them to written and oral language, raising their consciousness about the linguistic and sociolinguistic features of the language, and providing them with multiple opportunities to use the language for various purposes and in both formal and informal contexts. In other words, we are likely to succeed in helping learners become competent in English if our approach brings contextualized input and output into equilibrium. I often remind myself of the great linguist S. Pit Corder who wisely pointed out, “We may be able to allow the learner’s innate strategies to dictate our practice and determine our syllabus, we may learn to adapt ourselves to his needs rather than impose upon him our preconceptions of how he ought to learn, what he ought to learn and when he ought to learn.”
In sum, I consider that integration of skills, focus on the learner, attention to sociocultural issues and critical thinking are fundamental factors in the development of language competence. An English language program that combines reading, writing, listening, and speaking skillfully and designs specific curricular goals for each level of proficiency without compromising instructional creativity or the L2 learners’ ability to focus on their particular linguistic needs will allow both teachers and students to grow professionally and academically, thus contributing to the enrichment of the teaching/learning experience. I believe that my views on language learning and my teaching philosophy are closely aligned with the principles of language aquisition, a complicated process whereby students and teachers are able to expand their horizons while working towards a common goal: educational excellence.
