Teaching Philosophy
Every teacher has an opinion and belief about what they consider to be the most important points regarding teaching. I too have my own beliefs that influence the way I teach and the materials and activities I use to teach. I believe that collaboration, motivation, and low affective filter (comfortable to take risk atmosphere) are very important aspects in my teaching method.
The reason for learning a language is mostly to communicate. In all cases, it takes more than one person to communicate. I believe it is more beneficial for a student to collaborate and study language with a group (or at least a partner) rather than study by themselves alone. Language is practice (especially when it comes to speaking) however, in m opinion it is not effective when the practice is alone.
So in my classroom, to get my students to talk to each other, I try to come up with activities where talking is necessary. My warm ups are usually simple activities related to the topic of the lesson. For example, if the theme of the lesson is about movies then my warm up activity would be, with a partner talk about your most favorite movie or a movie that really inspired you. After a few minute of monitoring, I would ask if there were any students who would like to share their stories (if there are no volunteers then I would select a student). Also, I enjoy using jigsaw activities and group projects as well. Some projects I have done with student are making a mini newspaper about a topic of the students' choices and presenting it to the class. Collaboration, I believe, is not only helpful like the students enjoy working together rather than alone. As people say, two head work better than one.
However, if students do not have motivation to learn, then no matter how much fun the collaborative activity may be, no language learning will take place. Motivation usually comes from students when they find a purpose in learning a language. Also, if they have a goal or are especially fond of what they are learning, then the motivation comes more naturally. So as a necessity, one of the first things I do is a needs analysis with my students. A simple activity I do during my first class is the index card activity. I pass out an index card and I ask my student to write their name, contact information (cell phone, email, or both), and most importantly why they want (or the reason) to learn English. In this way, it helps me to memorize my students' names as well as find out what their desires of learning English are. This helps me to plan my lessons according to my students' interests and desires. Hopefully, this will help the motivation of my students since it will be important to them.
Finally my last belief is that the classroom should be a comfortable place for students to take risks. All my students are there to learn English. If they were perfect and did not make any mistakes then they would not be there. I encourage my students to take risks and tell them constantly that it is alright and natural to make mistakes. I make sure no one is ridiculed for making mistakes because usually the mistakes students make are common mistakes all the other students make as well. The classroom needs to be a place where students are comfortable to take risks. If the classroom cannot even be a place where a student can be comfortable, then where else can they go? Also, taking risks, I believe, helps students improve their English. Although feedback is important at times, when they take risks and are then corrected as a class, at least the student who took the risk tends to learn and remember the lesson taught that day (personal experience).
As time goes by, my teaching philosophy may change and I may consider other teaching aspects to be equally as important as the three I have written above. These three will most likely not waiver and my opinion about each will probably not diminish. Some teachers may agree with me and some teachers may not. But nonetheless this is my teaching philosophy and this is what makes me the teacher I am today.