Teaching Philosophy (Old)

Please note, I wrote this the first semester of my MA program back in 2018. It has changed substantially since.

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Education either functions as an instrument which is used to facilitate integration of the younger generation into the logic of the present system and bring about conformity or it becomes the practice of freedom, the means by which men and women deal critically and creatively with reality and discover how to participate in the transformation of their world.
– Paulo Freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed

As a teacher, I have been greatly inspired by Paulo Freire’s approach to education, which is education as a means of empowerment. Teaching, I believe, is an inherently political act, situated in the instructional system where learning takes place. Teachers, through their methodology, make conscious and unconscious decisions on how to empower their students in being critical thinkers. Allowing students the opportunity to establish their own voice, a teacher can better enable students to discover their own discourse communities in their target language. I strongly adhere to a problem-based model of education, which takes for granted that students have prior knowledge which can be used to solve problems presented by the teacher. By encouraging students to work through increasingly complex problems, a teacher is able to help students in building their critical thinking skills. In this way, a teacher acts more as a guide rather than the bringer of knowledge. This, in turn, leads students to approach learning as a way to meet the challenges they face in their everyday lives, and to use learning to shape their world.

In order to help students face these daily challenges, I combine Freire’s dialogical approach with task-based language teaching (TBLT), a method which structures the class around a series of activities to be completed by the students. TBLT works particularly well with adults by tying language learning to the tasks they do in their normal day-to-day lives, which in turn encourages them to continue the learning process outside of the classroom. Something as simple as picking a cellphone plan can be borrowed as a task in language learning. Additionally, an example of more formal language being utilized might be adapting visa application forms for a task to get students familiar with official government documents in English, or registering for university classes in English using an online registration board. The task may vary, but the fundamental purpose remains the same: to make learning centered around student lives. This allows students to recognize that the skills they learn in the classroom can be adopted in everyday experiences.

In that regard, language is situated. It takes place in context and without context meaning is lost. Students, therefore, must be encouraged to establish their own contexts and determine what is useful to their own lives. What they intend to do with the language they are learning is of utmost importance to know in order to provide the most relevant instruction. If a student has the goal of passing standardized English tests, then instruction would vary when compared to a student whose goal is to have conversations and make new friends. Being able to provide a variety of instructional methods based on student needs is vital in becoming a well rounded teacher, and what I aspire to do in my classes.

Critical thinking is the foundation of the Western model of education, stemming from the Greeks, and is something I believe worth pursuing in this increasingly competitive world. While memorization is important in the fundamental stages of language learning, being able to critically examine the role of one’s educational system enables one to adapt that system to their life. That, I believe, helps students much more than simply providing them with information. Information, in today’s age, is easy to find. A simple Google search, for example, will bring billions of results. It is the ability to determine which of these packets of information is important to the searcher’s life that determines if they are prepared for the age of information. By helping students critically examine the reasons behind their language learning to determine what their goals are will help them better focus their education. Learning is tied into teaching in a way that is inseparable, and the goals of the student must take paramount importance when developing lesson. In this way, I can better serve my students as a teacher.