Teaching Philosophy

I believe that students are unique and have their own ways to best learn foreign

languages. I will focus largely on individual differences such as learning strategies and

personality to create a classroom that all the students feel comfortable enough to participate. Ely

(1989) states that teachers should become aware of underlying personality and other affective

variables that might inhibit or promote acquisition (p.443). I believe that it is important to be

aware of any factor that may inhibit or promote student’s learning in a classroom. By being

aware of student’s individual differences I will be able to create a classroom using a variety of

different methods to help persuade students to expand their second language skills. Also, by

getting to know the student’s learning strategies I will be able to create and adjust lesson plans to

benefit every student in the class.

In the classroom, I would consider a mix of several different teaching methods to help

develop student’s language skills. My focus would be communicative language teaching along

with the having the class taught in the target language. It is beneficial for students to have

exposure to the language as much as possible to promote acquisition. My classes would be

primarily taught in the target language and use demonstrations and authentic materials to ensure

that students have as much input as possible. For students to produce output, I would focus more

on the communicative approach. The overall goal for the class is for students to be able to

communicate effectively in the L2. Communicative language teaching focuses on the functional

use of language in order to prepare students for real world situations. It is more important for

students to focus on getting their meaning across than worrying about having correct form. To

do this, I would create opportunities where students are introduced to new concepts through

social contexts as opposed to introducing them in isolation. Students will have activities that
allow them to frequently speak in the target language in order to encourage output of the L2 and

develop their communication competence. Some activities include role playing where students

can act out real life scenarios, interviews, and group work. During the interview activities,

students can work with each other and practice asking and answering questions. These activities

allow students allow students to have active conversations with each other and promote fluency

by having unpredicted responses.

 Works Cited

Ely, C. M. (1989). Tolerance of Ambiguity and Use of Second Language Strategies. Foreign

Language Annals, 22(5), 437-445.