One role for instructors is to impart knowledge to students, but another is to help them to create a lifelong passion for learning. Imparting knowledge implies an active instructor role, but in order for a class to be successful there needs to be an active student role as well. Playing active roles allows students to have more autonomy in the class, in a sense, making it what they are interested in and what they need rather than strictly what the instructor might want. What I strive for in all of my teaching styles is to make my students feel the course is “challenging”, but also to help them enjoy it, find each task interesting and succeed at the finish line.
My teaching style incorporates two dimensions: generating excitement regarding the learning process and emphasizing the use of personal tone, both from myself as an instructor and with the participation of my students. I always try to plan different activities to attract students’ attention, increase their learning motivation, and eventually reach their learning objectives and personal goals. In order to achieve these, I strive personally to be available outside of class, encourage discussion and critical thinking, and use humor in my lectures. While I aim for excitement and a personal tone, I do not believe in creating dependency in students. Rather, I prefer to treat them with respect and challenge them intellectually. I believe that students have the right to express their voices as well as to present their views, especially on cultural differences and global issues. Thus, I continually support my students to become creative, free-thinking, tolerant, and open-minded people in class and in their individual lives.
Additionally, I believe that the best learning occurs when thinking and acting are merged together as one process. Thus, I trust what John Dewey says, “Education is not preparation for life; education is life itself.” I would like my students to understand the application and daily usage of the language rather than just memorize it. I consider that students are more encouraged to fully understand the content of lessons when the instruction includes more interactive classroom activities and more authentic materials. As a result, authentic materials and real-life context resources are used in my lessons to facilitate learning and develop students’ academic knowledge and communicative skills. For instance, I use authentic materials such as news articles, fiction stories, TED Talks, video clips, movie trailers to help ESL students write, read, listen and speak in English.
In order to understand students’ learning process as well as to provide on-going feedback, I schedule teacher-student conferences regularly. After working through conferences with students, I find that they respond more positively to the one-on-one meetings. They tell me that the class activities are helpful to improve their English abilities and increase their learning motivation. Because of the welcoming environment that I create, my students are willing to ask questions when they face difficulties in their tasks. When I see the smiles of accomplishments on their faces, I take pride in sharing their joy.
I enjoy teaching very much, and I really appreciate the fact that I have met many wonderful students who have given me a variety of opportunities to experience different cultures in my teaching career.
