November 2018 – Our Teaching (and Learning) Philosophies

[Anne Hendler]

This is the forum for questions, answers, and discussions about our teaching and learning philosophies.

[Philip Shigeo Brown (Phil)]

As a life-long learner of learning, life, and teaching, this short 2010 piece represents a snapshot in time of an ever-evolving philosophy of language learning and teaching that I first began committing to writing in the autumn of 2006 as I had recently embarked on my MA TEFL/TESL. Notably, this version was required as part of the application for a full-time university teaching position in Japan and thus I hope it will further help others by sharing it here.

My ideas/approach for English language education at university level
by Philip Shigeo Brown (20 August 2010)

Essentially, I think we learn what we want or need to learn, and are more easily engaged by what is meaningful, appropriately challenging, interesting and/or fun. As a teacher, therefore, I aim to discover students’ abilities, interests, goals, and motivational factors, then provide and facilitate suitable learning opportunities to help them achieve their objectives in a comfortable, supportive, and friendly learning environment.

Different learner styles, profiles, and histories further influence the way we learn, so lessons necessarily include a range of group dynamics as well as tasks, activities, techniques, and methods to better suit a full spectrum of learners, regardless of their preferences for individual or group, cooperative or competitive, and different modes of learning. Integrating four skills into a balanced curriculum tends to enable students to develop more smoothly and achieve their language goals, although there may be a need to lean more heavily towards certain skills (e.g. academic literacy, oral communication and fluency) in particular EFL contexts.

Adopting an informed mixed methods approach, I seek to move learners away from what is often a teacher-dependent learning history towards learner autonomy. A learner- and learning-centred communicative approach, facilitated by meaningful tasks and supported with strategies-based instruction (e.g. Brown, 2010, in review), reflects an underlying philosophy of ‘learning by doing’. In addition, encouraging student-generated/driven content and curriculum negotiation further fuels learner motivation and a sense of ownership over their learning (Brown, 2009a, forthcoming). This also promotes English as a medium for learning new things as opposed to being the object of study.

At the universities where I have taught, beginning levels have evidently enjoyed and benefited from developing basic communication skills in addition to graded reading programs combined with note-taking, discussion, and presentation. With intermediate to advanced levels, student motivation and interest have been especially high on content-based courses pertaining to students’ field of study (e.g. medical English) or student-driven and/or negotiated content (e.g. legal, social, economic, and political issues for law, economics, international business, and politics majors). Of particular note, students have consistently given positive feedback regarding the learning of content and skills that are of immediate interest and use and/or perceived as valuable and relevant to their future.

A number of basic principles of language learning and teaching currently underlie my practice. Relating to topic, task, language, materials, performance, and goals, these principles can be represented by the following seven dynamically interacting continua which, through scaffolding, learners may be encouraged and led along during class, as well as throughout their course of development:

1. Communication, meaning & fluency ————> Accuracy & precision
2. Receptive skills/input ————> Productive skills/output
3. Teacher-dependent, controlled/structured ————> Independent, free, authentic
4. Familiar, basic, general, concrete ————> New, more challenging, specific, abstract
5. Casual/informal ————> Formal
6. Private/personal domain ————> Public performance
7. Local issues & contexts ————> Global

In addition, I aim to foster lifelong skills, such as creative and critical thinking (e.g. Brown, 2009b, in press; Taferner, Harada, Ronald, Sakamoto, Brown, Manning, Yphantides, & Grose, 2010), media awareness and academic literacy, discussion and presentation, negotiation and decision-making, reflection, goal-setting and evaluation. In turn, I hope that these additionally assist language learners in becoming more confident, proficient, and effective autonomous learners and communicators as world citizens in a global society.

Thank you for reading this and I look forward to talking about it further and hope you will share your own learning and teaching philosophy, too. This month, I will be revisiting and revising my last version from 2014!

References
Brown, P. S. (2009a, February 25). A negotiated syllabus: company classes with a twist. In Learners’ Voices, ELT News.com: https://www.eltnews.com/columns/mash/2009/02/a_negotiated_syllabus_company_1.html
Brown, P. S. (2009b). “A Questioning Framework for Critical Discourse Analysis in the Classroom”. Presentation. Global Issues in Language Education (GILE) SIG Forum, JALT National Conference, Grandship, Shizuoka.
Brown, P. S. (2010). “Word up! Vocabulary learning strategies empowerment”. Featured speaker presentation. A Day with Vocabulary, Yokohama JALT & Kanto Gakuin University.
Brown, P. S. (in press). “A questioning framework for critical discourse analysis in the classroom”. In M. K. Kabilan (Ed.), Pedagogies for creative and critical thinking in ELT, pp. 156-84. Damansara: Sasbadi.
Brown, P. S. (forthcoming). Introducing a negotiated curriculum. In K. Irie & A. Stewart (Eds.) Realizing autonomy: Practice and reflection in language education contexts. Basingstoke: Palgrave MacMillan.
Brown, P. S. (in review). Innovating a vocabulary learning strategies program. In T. J. Muller, S. D. Herder, J. L. Adamson, & P. S. Brown (Eds.) Innovating teaching in context: Asia.
Taferner, R. H., Harada, N., Ronald, J., Sakamoto, H., Brown, P. S., Manning, C., Yphantides, J., & Grose, T. (2010). Teaching-learning dialogue: Sharing ideas and resources. In A. M. Stoke (Ed.), JALT2009 Conference Proceedings, pp. 576-88. Tokyo: JALT.

[Anne Hendler]

Thank you for sharing your teaching philosophy. It’s a great example for those of us who don’t have a written-down version.

I’m really interested in how you formed this philosophy? What questions did you ask yourself (were you asked)? Where were you when you developed it (in which context and with which learners)?

Also, how have you used this teaching philosophy (or its current version)? Did you use it as a guide to your teaching or as a benchmark for your changing ideas or in other ways? How did it serve you in the context into which you were entering?

Thanks again for sharing! See you soon.

[Philip Shigeo Brown (Phil)]

Thank you for the excellent questions. I thought I would talk about that today in Teachers’ Room … so hope you can make it!

[Steven Herder]

Approach to Teaching

Steven Herder

All students intrinsically have a desire to learn, and in this age of the Internet, Google, Social Networking Services (SNS), and YouTube, educators must constantly evolve in order to teach in ways that match the pace at which young people are able to process and interact with information. The first tenet of my approach to teaching and learning is to connect with my students. I invest a great deal of time and energy at the beginning of any course getting to know my students – their linguistic level, their thinking abilities, their motivations, their goals, and their beliefs about learning. By spending a lot of time interacting with students, I have been able to stay current in my teaching approach. I believe there are two kinds of classrooms, those where students are working against you, and those where students are working with you. Of course, I prefer the latter, and I have learned through experience how to optimize a learning community in which students are challenged, motivated and meaningful members of the learning experience.

One example of staying connected with students in my present work place is related to communication styles. My students communicate almost exclusively through SNS messages using LINE, Instagram or Twitter. They avoid email and only reluctantly use it, therefore I set up a LINE group with all of my classes. By doing so, I am able to get responses from students almost immediately.

Another way I interact with them in a modern way is to do almost all of our homework and research online via Google Drive, which is both paperless and easily accessible by smartphone or computer. I have them do academic writing, transcriptions of recorded oral discourse, annotated bibliographies, and even their graduation dissertation completely online in a Google Document. We use the latest online Apps and websites such as Grammarly, LexTutor, UsingEnglish Text Analyzer, Vocabulary.com, Typing.com, and many others in order to facilitate their learning in ways that they can easily relate to.

The second tenet of my approach to teaching is to set up clear and challenging expectations for students. I take pride in being a good communicator and always ensure that I explain the syllabus objectives and expectations clearly and thoroughly. I expect students to be equally clear in communicating with me throughout the course. I expect students to actively engage with the topics in class, to develop critical thinking and questioning skills, and to create personal goals and reflect on their learning throughout the course. My main form of support for learning is through formative feedback, discussion, and of course, listening to them as they process with information and form their own ideas and opinions.

Finally, my third tenet is to create a friendly, relaxed, and fun learning environment. I am always told by students that I am funny and that my jokes and stories help them relax and feel comfortable. I am told that they do not hesitate to ask questions and that they always feel that they are being respected. Thankfully, I am told that my classes are almost always interesting and that time flies when we are together. Of course, this does not happen by chance – I employ an active learning approach, and I am deeply aware of Dornyei-like motivational strategies, and the affective filters they are able to bring down. I study classroom interaction regularly and continue to tweak my lessons in order to improve the teaching and learning experience for all.

[Philip Shigeo Brown (Phil)]

Thank you Steve! As much as we talk about teaching frequently and have done so for a decade, I always find it refreshing and eye-opening to read what you write. Personally, I think that for too long, I somewhat overlooked the importance of forming those connections or else, whilst I appreciated the importance, I often wasn’t sure how to create them with people I didn’t naturally have a rapport with.

Again I am reminded that, “Rapport is the basis of all communication.” (Dr Richard Bolstad) and your first example of using LINE reminds me of another important lesson Richard would highlight, “Learn to communicate in the way that others ‘listen’ to best,” since most of us communicate in the way we prefer.

I still recall a number of years back when I asked you in May, about 3-4 weeks into the new academic year, how classes were going, and you felt that year they were going better than ever BECAUSE you handn’t opened the textbooks yet! If I recall rightly (and do clarify if I go astray), but the epiphany you had was that spending more time to build those connections and trust between learners themselves as well as you and the learners would mean that you could do a lot more with them once ‘they were with you rather than against you’. Also, you recognised how many students were simply in need to time to adjust to the new academic year as well as their new lives, perhaps, and because of how Golden Week falls in Japan with a break after the first 3-4 weeks, it didn’t make sense to try and start something just before it.

[Philip Shigeo Brown (Phil)]

Thank you Steve! As much as we talk about teaching frequently and have done so for a decade, I always find it refreshing and eye-opening to read what you write.

1st Tenet

Personally, I think that for too long, I somewhat overlooked the importance of forming those connections or else, whilst I appreciated the importance, I often wasn’t sure how to create them with people I didn’t naturally have a rapport with.

Again I am reminded that, “Rapport is the basis of all communication.” (Dr Richard Bolstad) and your first example of using LINE reminds me of another important lesson Richard would highlight, “Learn to communicate in the way that others ‘listen’ to best,” since most of us communicate in the way we prefer.

I still recall a number of years back when I asked you in May, about 3-4 weeks into the new academic year, how classes were going, and you felt that year they were going better than ever BECAUSE you handn’t opened the textbooks yet! If I recall rightly (and do clarify if I go astray), but the epiphany you had was that spending more time to build those connections and trust between learners themselves as well as you and the learners would mean that you could do a lot more with them once ‘they were with you rather than against you’. Also, you recognised how many students were simply in need to time to adjust to the new academic year as well as their new lives, perhaps, and because of how Golden Week falls in Japan with a break after the first 3-4 weeks, it didn’t make sense to try and start something just before it.

[Philip Shigeo Brown (Phil)]

2nd Tenet

I also really enjoyed reading what you wrote about expectations, communication, and support and will definitely think more about how I address these areas when I revisit my teaching philosophy.

The point in your 3rd tenet about closely observing classroom interactions is also crucial and whilst this develops and improves with teaching experience, I always find it helpful to remember that even after more than 15 years’ teaching, I can still drop the ball on this early on in a new course if either I try to do too much or have the learners doing too much – less really is more with quality of experience trumping quantity.

[Anne Hendler]

Steven, thank you so much for sharing your approach to teaching. I really like your writing style, and I like how your writing style offers even more evidence that you really live your teaching philosophy. You are a good communicator.

I like that you offer evidence for each of the tenets of your teaching approach.

Has your teaching approach changed over recent years (with job changes, perhaps)? Or does the evidence from new workplaces still support your beliefs?

[Philip Shigeo Brown (Phil)]

As promised in our Friday session in The Teachers’ Room, here is a link to Lightbown & Spada’s (2006) photocopiable page on Popular Beliefs About Language Learning and Teaching (p.xvii)

[Philip Shigeo Brown (Phil)]

For anyone writing a teaching philosophy, whether for the first time or not, here are two helpful articles:

How to Write a Statement of Teaching Philosophy

Writing a Philosophy of Teaching Statement (Ohio State University)

[Philip Shigeo Brown (Phil)]

In The Teachers’ Room last week, I recalled starting a Teaching Journal when I began my MA TEFL/TESL in April 2006. Despite never having been able to keep a diary for more than a few days, I stuck at the journal and often wrote daily, and at least weekly for several years.

As a precursor to the teaching philosophy shared above, I found an entry at the beginning of one of my 4th journal, starting 15th November 2006:

These are some of the ‘key principles’ I considered at the time to be important for most learners I was teaching in Japan, although their importance to each individual, each class, and course would vary.

[Ruth Iida]

Hi, everyone. I’ve had no luck with pasting copies of my philosophy, so I’m typing this directly. What I have is more like a stream-of-consciousness-enjoy-writing kind of thing (I’m doing this for iTDi discussions, not for publication), and I hope it’s helpful to others. Here goes:

As a teacher of primary and secondary age children, I believe that language learning can and should be an empowering experience. I feel the greatest joy when students are able to show their ownership of language by using it spontaneously; when they do so, I make sure there’s a response. I want them to see that their words have brought about a direct result. If a student tells me they’re hot, I’ll take a poll: “Who else is hot? Should we turn on the fan?” If a student points to my earrings and says, “Can I see?” or even, “Can I touch?”…..well, of course they can. If a student hollers, “Let’s play a game!” I will at least consider the proposition. I constantly look for opportunities for students to use the language I know they have under their belts, and my favorite refrains are, “Tell me in English!” “Ask me in English!” and “Guess! Guess!” When a small child can produce the phrase he or she needs and sees the results immediately, we’re both energized and enjoying the moment.

The more words and phrases small children master, the more they can communicate their needs and feelings and the less frustrated they will be as language learners. Therefore, I believe that language teachers are the presenters of rich input. I’m the gatekeeper of input, at least while students are at my school. I know what goes in, and I know what comes out again as output. I cannot control or be sure of what is actually intaken, processed, and stored in their long-term memories, but I can certainly choose appropriate language to present and dangle it in front of them enticingly. In other words, I do my best to give students the language they need and to make that language salient for them. I help them find other words to connect to their new words and I guide them toward books and videos that present the same language in different and appealing ways ( in other words, “homework” ). The input I present in class is the base of their vocabulary corpus, that will hopefully lead them to still more words, more connections, and deeper understanding of meaning.

Mistakes are a necessary and healthy aspect of the learning experience. Students need to feel comfortable experimenting with language without fear of negative consequences, so creating and maintaining a safe and supportive atmosphere is another role of the language teacher. When students feel safe, they will take risks. When students know that perfection is not the final goal, they can laugh at their mistakes, learn from them, and move on. Students in a class are more than individual language learners; they are each others’ support system and source of motivation. When that system breaks down (think: unkind words, unwarranted negativity, unnecessary criticism ), children may no longer be willing to participate openly. And sometimes children judge themselves more harshly than we do; if we can urge them to be a bit kinder to themselves, why not do so? It’s part of creating the ideal atmosphere for motivating students to take in new language and to push it back out again in a safe place.

There’s more, but this is a start. : )

[Philip Shigeo Brown (Phil)]

Thank you for sharing Ruthie! I really like your underlying philosophy that language learning can (and should) be empowering and that your responses to your students using English helps to make that a reality and also give them a say in the learning process.

As ‘gate-keeper’ for language input in your school, how do you prioritise the vocabulary and/or topics to focus on? For example, do you draw upon corpus data whether from mainstream publishers or local, Japan-based data, e.g. Japanese EFL Learner Corpus?

Last but not least, I love your emphasis on kindness and have been thinking more about that lately as I look again at kindy options for my youngest. I’m curious therefore to know more about some of the practical ways in which you cultivate kindness amongst your kids? For example, one local Montessori I liked here, spend a month focusing on manners, language, and behaviours that demonstrate respect for each other, parents, teachers, and elders. They have also introduced a daily affirmation project to wake up in the morning and talk positively to themselves in the mirror (both being kind to themselves and developing self-esteem as well as self-efficacy).

[Anne Hendler]

Hello everyone.
I’ve had a lovely and frustrating time trying to post my teaching philosophy thoughts on here.
I even tried typing them in and still got an error message.
So here is my solution (that should take you to a google doc).

[Philip Shigeo Brown (Phil)]

Thank you for sharing all that Anne. I really enjoyed reading and talking to you about it in The Teachers’ Room tonight and it also gave me the chance to reflect on my own teaching – past, present, and future! whilst learning more from and about you 🙂

[Ruth Iida]

Anne, I really enjoyed reading your teaching philosophy. Several things that should have been obvious struck me; for instance, that we agree on the importance of creating an environment where learners support each other…..but I hadn’t made the connection between that fact and clinging parent/children situations. I will follow up on that idea in the spring when I talk to new mothers. And also mention it to staff, so we can work together to help our four-year-olds become a bit more independent from their mothers and enjoy interacting with friends. And I liked the story of the shy little boy who reads slowly and whispers. We have at least one child like that in every class, and I try to do what you describe—arrange the lesson so that I get a chance to notice their progress and so their slower pace is not obvious to classmates. Games that focus on speed (individuals have to say or read something quickly in order for the game to progress) are the worst for this kind of learner, and I try to work around that, too. I think you were really honest in your writing, and I appreciated that. I always learn from you, too.

[Anne Hendler]

Thanks for reading it, Ruthie. It turned out a little different from what it was in my notebook, I guess, but this was the only way I could get it posted. Thank you for always reminding me that I’m not alone and that it’s worth sharing even the little things.

[Philip Shigeo Brown (Phil)]

Challenging Popular Opinions on Language Learning and Teaching – David Shaffer The 19th Annual Korea TESOL International Conference 2011, pp. 297-300.

Abstract
Over the years, numerous beliefs about how languages are learned and how they should be taught have coalesced among laymen and foreign language teachers alike, often without very much theoretical foundation or research as a basis. The aim of this presentation is to challenge about fifteen such popular opinions and show how they are not supported or poorly supported by present second language acquisition research and theory. These opinions deal with first and second language acquisition beliefs, error correction, first language interference with language learning, pronunciation, vocabulary, grammar rules, structures, and interaction. The end goal is to produce a clearer perception of how second languages are learned and of current thinking on best practices for teaching them, making it possible for the teacher to make informed classroom instructional adjustments.

[Phil (Participant)]

Testing

[Author]

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