My Teaching Philosophy

As a teacher, no single classroom of students is the same, and no two students are alike in

their English proficiency and the learning strategies that best suit them. This presents not only a

unique challenge in ELL student teaching, but also a rewarding experience for myself that not

only continues to teach me new things from my students, but that also allows me to employ my

creativity to develop lesson plans that both effectively teach students the English language, while

emboldening them with the spark of creativity, challenge, and curiosity.

The diversity of any given classroom necessitates the adoption of cultural competence, an

ideal that is learned overtime through an attention to the backgrounds of all students in my

classroom. As an educator, I believe in the importance of learning about the language and culture

of my students. This looks like researching the specifics of a student’s home language, in order to

gain a sense of the challenges they might have learning English, and also educating myself on

my students’ cultural background. In doing so, I provide myself the capacity to not only

anticipate challenges that may come up in teaching my students English, but also to provide that

extra support and tailored instruction that I have found my students greatly benefit from. In

fostering cultural competence and student success in my classroom, I also stress the importance

of meeting with the caregivers of each student. With an attention to cultural sensitivity, I ensure

that caregivers are not only informed transparently of the goal of our meeting ahead of time, but

also that I provide a capable, educated in English language teaching, translator, with whom the

family has met ahead of time, and gained comfortability and trust with, to allow for any

necessary elaboration during the meeting and the promise of clear communication. As such, by

getting to know my students as well as their families, I gain access to a unique insight into my

student’s home life, personal responsibilities outside of the classroom, and the view of English
language learning supported by the family, and by extension, cultivated within my student. Such

understanding aids in bridging the gap between my teaching and its relevance to the lives of my

students and ensures the production of thoughtful, culturally competent practices to scaffold my

students’ learning.

In addition to linguistic and cultural competency in the backgrounds of my students, I

greatly emphasize teaching English with a focus on the interests of my students, as the core

philosophy of my approach. This acts as the guiding principle to my success as an educator. I

believe it is important that students not only enjoy the lessons and activities provided, but also

that those exercises relate back to the lives of the students. This is an ideal I take great steps to

foster, through questionnaires inquiring about the general topic interests of all students in my

classroom, in which responses are utilized to inform my teaching methodology and the content

of the lessons. Such attention to detail not only incentivizes my students to care about learning

English, but also instills a beacon of curiosity through fostered relevant application to their

personal worlds. Expanding upon the notion of instruction that asserts importance upon that

which is relevant to the daily and aspirational lives of students, I believe that it is important to

get to know my students individually, as people, outside of the classroom setting. For instance, I

care about their hobbies, dreams beyond school, and home-life. Mobilizing this information, I

make an effort to craft activities that play off of these values, establishing a classroom culture of

comfortable, fun, and engaging activities that center upon that which my students adore and find

useful. By engaging the interests of, and cultural considerations of my students in our classroom

lessons, I am able to create a positive environment for my students, in which they feel

represented, seen, and valid, as part of a warm community rather than alone and isolated in their

learning.
 At the beginning of the course, I test my students to determine where they struggle and

need additional assistance, and overall, to gain a sense of the level that my students are at,

individually and collectively. I then tailor activities according to the needs of the students in my

classroom. For students who are struggling and for those who are excelling, supplemental,

individualized material and attention is provided, to ensure that no student is left behind, and that

those who are excelling, remain challenged and engaged.

Students learn best when they are able to guide their own learning, especially when that

learning is centered on topics that are currently relevant and useful to their own lives outside of

the classroom. As such, beyond ensuring that class material is relevant to the lives and interests

of my students, I also encourage students to be responsible for their own learning, through the

provision of a wealth of homework and review exercises, allowing my students to identify the

skills that they want to work on for any given assignment, with the intention that all skills are

mastered by the end of the course. The skills each student is given an option to choose from are

determined from the beginning of the course general exam I give to all of my students, and my

own personal observation of students during class activities.

Lastly, I believe in the benefit of immediate feedback to the success of my students, and

therefore make this a priority in any and all instructional material I provide, from homework to

short-in class activities.

Upon completion of my course, my students will be able to converse with native speakers

of the language, with a focus on intelligibility over accuracy. While there is a time and place for

accuracy, I believe that the most important part of language is that it allows us to communicate

with and be understood by others. It is the message itself that is important, not the “correctness”
of it. I also want my students to have gained confidence in themselves, and a shift of identity,

viewing themselves as speakers of English.

I intend to continue my professional development by attending conferences dedicated to

presenting evidence-based strategies for teaching the English language to ESL students. I plan to

test, and adopt those strategies that stand out to me, for my own classroom use in accordance

with the needs of my students. I will also spend significant time consulting professionals and my

peers, learning from the methods of instruction that work for their classrooms and can therefore,

with careful attention, be adapted for my own.