Teaching Philosophies

1- Abdeljalil B.

The teaching of English as a foreign language is one of the important professions that need more professional development. It is based on how much a teacher receives more training and knowledge about the teaching of this language. Thus, if we try to observe a certain teacher while doing his job, we will certainly see if the teacher has a considerable knowledge about what he is doing or not. In this context, being aware of the approaches and methods of teaching languages like English is a very significant factor that helps teachers to teach English in a good way for students. However, bearing in mind that there is no best approach, good teachers focus on all the approaches and take from each one what is beneficial for them in the classroom. They also take from them some techniques and adapt them to the context in which they are teaching.

As a teacher, I see that the audio-lingual method is beneficial for me in the idea that language learning is a process of habit formation. Thus, it is important to prevent students from making errors because they may be developed into habits. In other words, when students come up with a successful response to verbal and non-verbal stimuli, it becomes the teacher’s responsibility to reinforce them. In this case, this technique of positive reinforcement helps students develop correct habits. In addition, it leads them to develop their self-confidence and increase their self-esteem. Therefore, the use of it will be beneficial and effective in the Moroccan context especially with adolescent students since they are seeking to raise their self-esteem and celebrate their own performances and successful outcomes.

I think also that the total physical response is efficient in teaching English in the Moroccan context since it combines action with speech. It would work particularly with young children who like to action and movement. Indeed, this method will help me as a teacher to develop the listening skills of my students because students are required to listen attentively to the language and then respond physically. They will also be able to understand the lessons and produce new combinations while encountering new experiences. In this context, it is important to mention that this method will be used to teach only concrete language rather than abstract one. In addition, it will be used gradually and enjoyably in order not to confuse shy students. In this way, this kind of students will be involved smoothly in the learning of the target language until they overcome shyness.

The Community language learning is also an approach that the teacher may benefit from and use in the Moroccan context. It helps to unify the classroom and make it as one community in which the student is an active member. That is to say, students are actively collaborating together inside the classroom with a clear purpose that motivates them to learn and develop their communication skills. In this respect, they also enhance their listening skills since they are required to listen and understand each other. Hence, this approach will be also an effective resource for teachers in the Moroccan education because it allows learners to talk to each other and their teacher in a free conversation. In this case, the instructor is required to design a secure environment for students to help them express their ideas confidently without any obstacles.

Indeed, the communicative language teaching helps to promote the communication skills of learners. Therefore, the teacher may use it to establish the relationships with students. It allows the student to be aware of his abilities and exhibit them in front of his colleagues. In this respect, the teacher provides the opportunity for students to give as much as they gain from each other. That is, learners have the chance to negotiate information and share what they learned before. The teacher, hence, facilitates the communication between students and act as an independent participant in the classroom. This approach will be effective in teaching Moroccan students because it will help them to use English to learn rather than considering it as an end. In other words, students will focus on learning rather than keeping attentions on the specific details and rules of English. They will learn this language in an inductive way because they will use it for different purposes.

The Competency-based language Teaching is also one of the approaches that are workable in the Moroccan education. It facilitates for the teacher his job in developing learners’ competencies, namely essential skills, knowledge, attitudes and values. These competencies are the most required for effective performance of real-world tasks and activities. In this case, the teacher focuses on strategies of learning rather than on content to help students to be autonomous. In addition, he/she leads students to transfer knowledge and skills and promote the culture of collaboration and competition in students. The teacher also prepares students for real-world experiences. For instance, the teacher in high school prepares baccalaureate students for university and job market by leading them to develop the essential competencies mentioned before.

Eventually, there are other approaches that teachers can benefit from and use in teaching English within the Moroccan education. In this connection, what is important is not the whole implementation of each approach in the teaching operation, but the combination of different techniques derived from different approaches. That is to say, an intelligent teacher is the one who takes from each approach what is crucial for his coming lesson. Therefore, no perfection is related to one single approach but it is the combination of some approaches that lead to a good teaching and learning of English as a foreign language.

 

E. Abdelghani

During this school year in TEFL curriculum, I tried to imagine the possible outline of my own philosophy of teaching. This philosophy as I want it to be is a kind of combination of different methods and principals which I personally find pertinent and possible to be implemented in my future classroom. So what are the major characteristics of this personal approach? How it can be implemented? And what are my roles as a future EFL teacher in the light of recent changes and innovations in educational science?

Before being enrolled to this program, TEFL, I was basically concerned with how to teach, and can I do it, and I didn’t notice or think about other aspects of EFL teaching. Then I started noticing students’ behavior of this era and the needs of the generation in which I imagine myself as future EFL teacher, and I started thinking and reflecting on some best practices, exploring how and why teach in each particular context in a way that I could contribute to make my future students’ lives better . I discovered that my teaching could really contribute to my students’ personal transformation, thus I can contribute positively to the service of my community be it small or large. Then a sense of commitment towards my future profession started to develop, and I discovered that I should have some of the conditions a professional EFL teacher must have, and that the limitations in my cognitive framework about teaching constrain my teaching practices especially because my previous formation was in the field of cultural studies and not in teaching. I wanted to be able to take courses of action and practice, courses that are based on knowledge and thought, rather than on curiosity and creativity. I was conscious that I must base my professional future actions on the results of academic research and theorizing as well as on others experiences in educational science. In Richards’ words I felt the need to use successful pedagogical techniques and principals that might bring new insight and more innovative possibilities to my teaching practice because I believed that skills without knowledge or principles are professionally unacceptable and the knowledgeable teacher who is also skillful will be a powerful educator. Hence came the idea to join TEFL as a professional and practical program which can provide me with the needed skills and the adequate know-how.

All the courses were primordial, beneficial and helpful for me to start building my own philosophy in teaching. I started studying and doing professional development activities and practices that challenged and changed my conceptual framework. Being a student in TEFL has enabled me to make better decisions about the activities and techniques I could adopt in my classes. I’ve learned that teaching is not just a series of predetermined procedures, but a context-sensitive action grounded in intellectual and theoretical thought and creativity in which the practitioner has to identify and meet the challenges faced in the everyday practice of teaching even if the micro-teaching course sessions and the internship in Ibn Rochd high school were not enough for me to bring my philosophy into practice.

Currently I’m in the process of understanding the theory and the principles of language teaching, and the learning approaches and methods, and I can’t not say, in this stage of my professional journey that I have arrived to achieve and build a definite and complete philosophy in teaching because I’m still discovering new practices and principals to EFL teaching and also because I can’t pretend a comprehensive or thorough understanding of all the approaches and methods in teaching, yet I can say that the combination of some approaches and methods such as the task-based language teaching, the competency based education and the standard-based approach are adequate to a possible future personal vision in my carrier; because TBLT for instance focuses on the use of authentic language and on asking students to do meaningful tasks using the target language. Assessment is primarily based on task outcome rather than on accuracy of prescribed language forms. This makes TBLT especially popular for developing target language fluency and student confidence. From another perspective, competency-based education is an approach to teaching and learning more often used in learning concrete skills than abstract learning. Learners work on one competency at a time, which is likely a small component of a larger learning goal. The student is evaluated on the individual competency, and only once they have mastered it do they move on to others. After that, higher or more complex competencies are learned to a degree of mastery and isolated from other topics. In addition to what have been detailed, the standard-based approach to education means that students are required to meet a set of standards for every topic, but can achieve them at their own pace, personally, I found this approach very innovative because this concept could introduce a wider range of students to opportunities of initiative-based learning and critical thinking. But one of my biggest concerns about the standards-based approach, however, is the role of technology in all of it.

To implement these approaches, the teacher should use a variety of principals and roles, for task-based approach the instructor should select and sequence tasks, also he/she should prepare learners for tasks by raising their consciousness. Concerning competency-based education approach the teachers support learners in taking active roles in the classroom by providing them with experiences that meet their interests and needs, in addition to that the teachers are mainly responsible for facilitating what happens in the classroom by:

• creating a comfortable, supportive and collaborative environment where learners can work actively, free from fear of making mistakes, and where they want to use English and have a ‘real’ purpose in using it;
• presenting language so that learners can figure out the rules and patterns and learn from their mistakes;
• Providing communicative practice using English that supports learners in developing listening, reading, writing and speaking skills to exchange ideas and information to meet their needs and interests.To conclude, “an individual teacher may draw on different principles at different times, depending on the type of class he or she is teaching” (Richards and Rogers, 2001), hence a comprehensive teaching philosophy can be an outcome and a combination of different approaches, methods, techniques and practices to teaching and learning, in addition to one’s own teaching experiences; in this context Richards and Rogers’ book Approaches and Methods in Language Teaching summarizes some of the teachers’ role among any teaching philosophy:
• From another point of view, as a future teacher, standard-based approach can be implemented by facilitating and guiding student, also by designing task, managing group processes of the learning, and also the teacher interpret information about learning performance to promote intellectual and linguistic development of each learner, in this approach the instructor should be a technician and expert who helps student transfer knowledge and skills and last not last the teacher nurtures student motivation and investment in school work.

• Engage all learners in the lesson
• Provide maximum opportunities for students participation
• Make learners, and not the teacher, the focus of lesson
• Develop learner responsibility
• Be tolerant of learners’ mistakes
• Develop learners’ confidence
• Teach learning strategies
• Respond to learners difficulties and build on them
• Use a maximum amount of student-to-student activities
• Promote cooperation among learners
• Practice both accuracy and fluency
• Address learners’ needs and interests.

Richards and Rogers, 2001

 

Hasnae N.

 

The training I received from ENS (Ecole Normale Supérieure) in Rabat has enabled me to select among the various teaching methods to find the one that suits my prospective students‘ needs. As a matter of fact, my own objectives as a will-be teacher are, first, to ensure a better learning atmosphere for students where they can feel secure and free to make lots of mistakes, and second, to help them acquire fluency in English. To realize this, I will choose a method that enables students to talk more than the teacher. In the first part of this short essay, I will state my own teaching philosophy and beliefs that I want to adopt as a will-be teacher. Also, I will shed light on the reasons behind my choice of the method and how it is going to be implemented.

Nowadays, foreign languages are mainly learnt to serve various communication purposes. In this regard, in order to develop students’ communicative competence and engage them in real-life conversation, as a will-be teacher, I believe in the communicative approach, and implementing its techniques in my classrooms. I will do this by reducing my talking time and giving more opportunities for students to express themselves; this way will help them practice the target language, and thus become fluent in English.

According to what I noticed in high school, most of teachers of foreign languages rely on accuracy. However, in my opinion, accuracy is more helpful in purposes of writing and reading than oral communication, which means a student can write and read English perfectly, but he or she cannot communicate orally and fluently because of lack of practice in classrooms.

I remember when I was a pupil, I had a fantastic teacher of English who used to target fluency more than accuracy. His class was my favorite one, because we were allowed to talk as much English as possible. Despite students‘ low level, we were able to lead fruitful discussions and use the target language without paying too much attention to mistakes. In fact, what was astonishing is that by the end of the year, all students, and even myself, could notice a great progress in our English language. Fluency, actually, encourages talking, and the mistakes start to correct themselves naturally and unconsciously. Therefore, I will adopt my best teacher’s techniques, and add what I acquired from my training to ensure an effective learning in my classrooms.

As for those techniques to implement fluency, The emphasis inside my prospective classroom should be based on fluency more than accuracy, and I must stop pointing out students’ mistakes. In this sense, I must let the student finish his or her speech then I correct him or her so as to avoid discouragement. I will pave the way for students to discuss current issues and freely practice the target language. Furthermore, I have to be no more than a facilitator because the best teacher must be a guide on the side rather than a sage on the stage. He or she has to help his or her students develop self-assessment by allowing students to discover the mistake themselves, and provide a motivating atmosphere for them to communicate by praising them in order to encourage them to make as much mistakes as possible, and learn from those mistakes.

As s future teacher of English, I will orient my classroom activities to be dependent more on communication— activities that target fluency. I will help students use the target language, by conducting debates or discussions about current issues or topics of their concern. Also, I will provide them with a secure atmosphere where they feel at ease to communicate and interact with their peers without being shy or afraid to be laughed at. In my classes, all students will have equal rights to voice their opinion and practice as much English as possible.

To conclude, a communicative approach in the classroom will ensure an acquirement of skills of communication that students will make use of later on in the future. However, this is not the end of my own career‘s development. I still have to search and discover new methods and techniques. Personally, I highly recommend the communicative approach; however, their might be other approaches that are also important such as TPR (total physical response) that encourages learning by doing. Therefore, a teacher have to select from each method and approach what suits his or her students needs.

 

Fatima S.

“Why writing my teaching philosophy?”. Honestly speaking, the idea of writing my teaching philosophy made me anxious because I had not idea about where to begin. But after I had started to think thoroughly about it, I began to like it as it stimulates reflections on teaching. The act of taking time to consider and write down my teaching philosophy, perceptions, and visions provides me with a golden opportunity to enrich my personal and professional development. Over time, I intend to write more developed statements of my teaching philosophy, review, and revise them constantly. By doing so, I believe that this will help me to reflect on my growth and renew my dedication to the objectives and values that I hold.

Because I’m fond of teaching, I have began a kind of virtual journey diving into the depths of teaching pedagogy, methods, and approaches. Throughout this mesmerizing trip, I was traveling from one website to another in order to quench my intellectual thirst, along with forming a prototype of my teaching philosophy. I realized that having a BA degree in English Studies is not enough to teach efficiently. That is why I seized the opportunity of being enrolled in TEFL program at ENS, where I have learned a lot, especially from TEFL methods and approaches’ course. Actually, this course provided me with a theoretical framework and basis on which I base my teaching practices.

As a prospective teacher, I intend to embrace a personal approach that combines the best of all teaching methods and approaches we have learned; it is an eclectic set of arrays that aims at suiting my students’ learning styles and needs. As a teacher, I see myself as a farmer, and students’ diverse learning styles and needs as bushes, trees, flowers, and plants; my role is to provide my plants (students) with the appropriate circumstances where they can thrive. Therefore, I will mold the curriculum to tie in each student’s learning style. For doing so, I will make use of different aspects and modalities of TEFL methods and approaches, along with skills’ integration in order to build a strong lesson plan meeting my students’ expectations. As I believe that language is meant to be used communicatively, my lesson plans will include opportunities to actively engage my students in communication in order to achieve a goal or complete a task. My lessons’ objectives will evolve around the idea of making my students communicatively competent, able to understand the socio-cultural dimensions of language and to use it appropriately for a given social context, and being able to manage the process of negotiating meaning with interlocutors. Moreover, I intend to target teaching the four basic skills in an integrative way. Furthermore, I aim to incorporate fun with learning to actively engage my students in the teaching/learning process. That is why I will provide my students with enjoyable learning experiences that lower their affective filter and minimize the stress that typically accompanies learning EFL. In addition to that, my main objective is to teach my students not only content, but also thought; I want to instill in my students social values (independence, cooperation, responsibility, leadership, etc) and intellectual skills (HOTS: critical thinking, lateral thinking, convergent thinking, creative thinking,etc.). In order to achieve this objective, I will design activities such as: discussions and debates through which my students will become responsible for their own learning and develop independence from me, their teacher.

 

Mohammed O.

As it is stated , “A teaching philosophy is a self-reflective statement of your beliefs about teaching and learning.” From the wide range of approaches and methods we have systematically covered, I circumscribed what “teaching is a human act” exactly means, as it is claimed. Teaching English does not require transmitting the systematic patterns of this language, but also, it’s a dynamic cultural and communicative mission. This essay tries, in an honest and open way of speaking, to shed light on the contribution of TEFL approaches and methods to the shaping of my personal teaching philosophy.

Above all, my teaching philosophy stems its tenets from the awareness of the historical shift in language teaching from a traditional way that considers reading comprehension as the goal of language study, to a modern approach that highlights oral proficiency. Making a difference between an approach, a method, and a technique is very helpful to be eager to decide which one of them would be more useful and relevant to apply and adopt. From our educational up-bringing, our minds are shaped by many aspects that determine our own view of things in life. In this way, if we attempt to enrich our assumptions with discovering certain literature and professional ideas, we may either find that we have true ideas, or false ones that need to be adjusted. This suggests that from being exposed to TEFL approaches and methods, I adjusted many schemes concerning teaching. The historical transition of approaching language teaching that Richard and Rogers highlight at indulging in ramification of all the approaches, shows that English language moves from being a subject to learn to a profession to master. This means that the learner becomes more active while dealing with language, and becomes responsible of the take away he is supposed to have from learning English; thus, as a teacher, I feel that teaching is not only focusing on a product, but also on processing that product. In other words, my teaching should be “out of the box” meaning that the learner will be able to use the language and produce it on his turn. From the emergence of the direct method up to those current methods and approaches, language teaching becomes dynamic and accepts a wild range of approaches that enhance the active and efficient ways of learning a language.

I perceive that a dynamic language class would guarantee students’ dynamic learning of language, in real world situations, as many approaches emphasize. Furthermore, our Moroccan classrooms need what was previously mentioned in term of dynamic feature of the environment of learning. The latter appears in teaching language skills and promoting their function in communication and interactional situations. Leading the talk toward communication, learning English should be active and creative as it is emphasized in Communicative Language Teaching perspective. In class, “activity” is preferable than only a “course”, and a “task” is more beneficial than only an “exercise”. Many methods emphasize that the role of the teacher sometimes should be confined to being a counsellor, and an active participant with much to contribute. This draws in to mind the idea that a language class should be like a community in which language is a tool of communication, and the learning goal is not only learning it but also learning basic life skills through the language. This authentic view of language teaching would technically flourish thanks to my use of diverge and various authentic material that includes realia, meaningful tasks, visual cues, role-plays and many other purposeful and comprehensible procedures with which students are acting and reacting to solve problems. Moreover, the physical response of students in class while learning language items that indicate action should be illustrated in active activities such as imperative drills, conversations, dialogues, role-plays and the like. Total Physical Approach suggests many effective procedures that aim at teaching basic speaking skills in English. Hence, as a teacher, I feel that my mission entails my integration of many skills rather than knowledge; I should be an exhibiter and the modeller of a comprehensible input. Education must be relevant to the needs and interests of students and that learning increases when students are engaged in meaningful activities. Through teaching English as a whole, according to the Whole Language Approach, second language becomes more likely in a plate of first language acquisition. So, my role is to establish a climate for communication and collaboration tolerating ambiguity, and accepting mistakes as signs of learning. When I approach language learning as experience and interaction, my students will feel that they are in control of their learning process, and will acquire enough self-confidence to achieve personal goals using language, and enjoying high self-esteem.

Teaching is not only providing knowledge, but it is also providing strategies to students to become autonomous. Hence, I am going to devote my potential to develop students’ ways of learning through being a model of how to learn, and what preferably to learn. Teachers can show their students that they are valued and cared for through the way they interact with them. Likewise, if a student is not interested in the subject being taught, he/she will be less likely to concentrate and learn. It is our job as educators to create interesting environments with stimulating approaches to learning, and give students tools to appreciate what they are learning. I believe that the classroom is the biggest window of opportunity our children have. I want to be a catalyst in that opportunity, for that is how we will attain a brighter future. My first strategy in this way is the development of conceptual understanding of the input, and the second is the improvement of professional use of that input. In other words, what I teach in the classroom should be an an extension to the outside world. I’m deadly convinced that there are plenty of ways to reach every student because every student is capable of learning. I feel I can accomplish this if I first motivate students by getting them interested. Then, I will facilitate their learning by guiding them toward finding the answers or acquiring knowledge. To do so, I must make things relevant for the students. If I am able to relate things to my students’ lives then they will be better able to make connections to what they are learning. I plan to show enthusiasm for the subject I am teaching because enthusiasm is contagious. This will be helpful in getting my students to like the subject material, which has a ripple effect on learning. I believe that teaching is a profession in which the educator has many opportunities to apply his knowledge of content area, personal strengths and creativity, and his life skills to the tasks at hand on a day to day basis. As an example, when working in cooperation with other teachers, handling difficult situations with students and even just enjoying the satisfaction of a job well done, we devote ourselves to our students; we have to show them that we are here only for their benefit. All these mentioned qualities, if come into play, our students would not be lazy to exploit any opportunity to keep in touch with his teacher. In order to keep all of these in balance, however, it is imperative that the teacher, or teacher in training, has a clear idea of what may be defined as her philosophies of teaching.  My philosophy of education is almost wholly derived from my own experiences as a student. I have always had a love of learning, and I want to extend that love into teaching. Therefore, my teaching methods and views of learning reflect the idea I have of how I would have liked my teachers to teach. Hence, I would like to take a nut from each of the TEFL approaches and methods we dealt with. What have previously been mentioned stems from my major philosophical appreciation of those approaches.

In sum, as a T EFL teacher, my interest in teaching stems from my belief that teachers can have an incredible amount of influence on the life of their students, and with this privilege comes a great deal of responsibility to the student. All of this the EFL teachers should take into a great consideration. Knowing this, it seems like a no-brainer to me that a teacher, just because of the enormous amount of time a student spends in school, should be expected not only to teach, but also to help shape the student taking into account his or her individual needs. The teacher should be expected and trained to do this because it is inevitable anyway, considering the amount of time a teacher spends with students, the latter will be influenced by what the teachers inculcate in them, be it knowledge or self construction skills.