Teaching Philosophy

In teaching, there is no single prescribed way to effectively teach students. Often, the
approach and techniques a teacher uses will vary according to factors involved with their
particular class, including the subject being taught, skill area, and even the population of students
within the classroom. There is also an array of pedagogical theories with varying opinions and
techniques that teachers can integrate and adopt into their own classrooms. That being said, I do
believe that there are some features that every teacher should implement into their classroom no
matter the individual factors. This paper serves as my teaching philosophy, and in it I will discuss
these items and why I believe they are key to any successful classroom environment.
The classroom has undergone many changes throughout the years, these have been
informed by research, new pedagogical theories, and advances in technology. One change has
been a movement away from the traditional teacher-centered classroom to a more studentcentered learning environment. This type of learning environment focuses more on the learner
and allows them to collaborate and participate in small group work, which generates more
student-to-student interaction (Brown, p.49). This student-to-student interaction is encouraged
from the set-up of the room to the type of tasks given to students. In the classroom, desks are
arranged in groups of up to four, rather than the more traditional row seating facing the front of
the room. Students are also often assigned with tasks that encourage them to work
collaboratively to figure out the content, patterns, or meaning behind a text (Brown, p. 53). They
are encouraged to discuss and critique each others work to negotiate and critically evaluate
answers, rather than being given the answer or rules by the instructor. This particular
environment also supports another important factor in the classroom, student generated talk is a
way for teachers to elicit responses and conduct comprehension checks from students.
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I believe that another important factor in the classroom is elicitation, it is an important

aspect for teachers because it allows them to discover what students know, how much they
understand and provides an opportunity for clarification. Their level of understanding allows the
teacher to know what content areas need more coverage, and what areas are being sufficiently
internalized by students. This form of elicitation acts as a comprehension check, but it is not the
only function that elicitation serves. In the classroom student-to-student generated talk, or even
instructor-to-student talk, provides the instructor with an opportunity to make clarification
requests and provide valuable feedback, which can aid in the development of the L2 (Nassaji, p.
513). Exposure to feedback can act as a positive reinforcement for the language, whether the
feedback is negative or positive, it provides the L2 speaker with valuable information regarding
the use of the language (Nassaji, p. 513). Elicitation and feedback, however, are not the sole
source of information for the L2 learner, authentic material can also be substantial in its potential
for language learning and the development of communication competence.
Authentic material in the second language classroom is important for many reasons, it
provides an example for learners to model, it can increase a learners communication skills, and
can also serve as a motivation for students (Zohoorian, p. 16). Authentic material can come from
a variety of sources including; newspaper articles, podcasts, radio, and various sources from the
internet. This is where technology can be very advantageous in the classroom, it allows a way to
provide varied examples of authentic material. This authenticity is important in a second
language learning environment because it exposes students to real discourse. Authentic material
is also a good way to bring diversity into classroom activities to keep students motivation and
interest levels high as they learn.

Although, teachers have an array of approaches and techniques to choose from when
deciding how to teach effectively, it is my belief that the aspects mentioned in this teaching
philosophy are essential. A classroom must be student oriented, have instances of elicitation and
feedback, and provide an assortment of authentic materials in order to help students be
successful. This paper does not include everything that must go into the building of a successful
learning environment, it simply mentions those that I find essential. This paper also does not
mention how exactly a teacher can achieve these particular elements, as there is great variation in
how these elements can be implemented, and as previously stated, there is more than one way to
effectively do so.

References
Brown, K. L. (2003). From teacher-centered to learner-centered curriculum: improving learning
in diverse classrooms. Education, (1), 49.
Nassaji, H. (2007). Elicitation and Reformulation and Their Relationship With Learner Repair in
Dyadic Interaction. Language Learning, 57(4), 511-548.
Zohoorian, Z. (2015). Motivation Level: A Study on the Effect of an Authentic Context.
Procedia - Social And Behavioral Sciences, 192(The Proceedings of 2nd Global Conference on
Conference on Linguistics and Foreign Language Teaching), 15-25.