Philosophy Statement: I believe that learning a new language is a very challenging process for the student and teacher. As a teacher I have encountered numerous contexts in which different techniques worked and some that needed thorough learning improvement. I believe that each student learns differently and can focus better while having visuals or audios or by role playing.
It is very important to create real communication opportunities. A teacher must create a comfortable atmosphere in class and help generate effective communication thus students interact and develop discourse skills. A student might want to learn a foreign language in order to achieve a goal, such as passing an exam or getting a dream job. Moreover, a student might want to use the foreign language for social reasons while another can learn by being confident from previous experiences. Students are responsible for their own learning and the teacher coordinates the course of their learning in their favor. A teacher must keep the students’ interest during classes so that they can feel motivated and become aware of their own abilities.
In a class, the group of students becomes a small country with different beliefs and traits but with the same goal, that is learning. As a teacher I have used several methods to motivate my students to learn from icebreakers, movies and songs to role play and storytelling. I not only encourage learning but also develop values that I believe are core traits foe a successful learning: friendship, tolerance, cooperation and respect. The mutual confidence in the classroom is thus created and students can work in either pairs, groups and have whole class discussion developing their skills and their sense of responsibility.
As future goals I would say that I have to apply everything that I have learnt from the best professors, from my students and adapt my teaching to anyone willing to learn. I have applied communicative approach, traditional and modern techniques especially Kahoot quizzes, debate and exercises based on movies or songs. My university paper focused on using the movie “Le Fabuleux destin D’Amélie Poulain” in teaching French as a Second Language. I have created exercises to all high school levels and experienced this type of class activity later in my career too. I will always remember the appreciation received from my high school teacher whose students participated in my teaching experiment before completing my university studies. It has since motivated me to develop my teaching and respect the mission I chose in life, a role model not just for my students as they know and saw me as an active volunteer, as a motivated teacher but also for my two children.