【私の教育理念（英語版）】My teaching Philosophy for a Captivating Language Class

こんにちは！みゆです。今日は番外編として私の教育理念を英語で載せてみようと思います。クラスの課題の一環なので、「ハワイ大学の言語学」の課題の一つとして参考になればと思います。言語学や言語教育に興味がある方は、是非読んでみて欲しいです。基本的なエッセイの構造を理解してもらうために、”intro, body, conclusion, reference'と表示させてもらっています。

My Teaching Philosophy for a Captivating Language Class

Introduction

“One language sets you in a corridor for life. Two languages open every door along the way.” – Frank Smith

       My fundamental belief towards “language” is that learning a second language has a great positive influence on people. In fact, my experiences learning a language has brought me a lot of advantages. For example, by communicating directly with people from different backgrounds and identities in English, my horizons have broadened tremendously, and I have grown to accept other countries naturally. I was also able to build self-esteem and gain confidence by using my English abilities to contribute to the lives of other people. The biggest reward was that I gained the opportunity to become a Japanese teacher. These positive mental changes and motivational mindset could not have happened without my teachers’ guidance. I also learned what students actually need for language acquisition from my experiences or failings as an English learner.
When I learned English in Japan for 6 years, I considered language class as something impersonal and dry and not beneficial. I just memorized a set of grammatical rules and repeated what the teacher and audio said just for the purpose of passing an exam. I’ve never taken advantage of the grammar knowledge for any other purpose after passing my University entrance exam in Japan. My 4 year-study abroad experience transformed the concept of language learning, and I recognized that effective English learning occurs when students are taught how to think and not simply what to think by people in practical experiences and are engaged in class initiatively. Student-centered and communication-focused classes significantly developed not only my English skills but also life skills. These critical experiences created my passion to become a language teacher. Based on my experience, “trial and error” and “failure and success” in second language learning, there are 3 important beliefs to facilitate successful learning and expand students’ potential to be great English communicators. 

body

     I briefly introduce 3 beliefs with important theoretical components that I learned at Second Language Study at the University of Hawaii and explain each in detail.

1) Rapport: Students learn best when they feel welcomed, comfortable and safe.
- Conducting personal surveys for students.
- Intercultural language education
2) Motivation: The important thing for learning is not to stop questioning and having a great curiosity and keep motivation out of class.
- Critical thinking
- Using technology both inside and outside of the classroom
3) Practical learning: Student-centered captivating classroom setting can allow students to input and
output actively not passively to maximize their learning.
- Task-based learning

1. Rapport
[Students learn best when they feel welcomed, comfortable and safe.

      I recognized that the majority of ESL students from Asian countries have experienced difficulties of communicating with native English speakers even though their grammatical competence is fairly high. I also often have felt the nervousness and awkwardness of trying to blend in ESL class culture in America. Intercultural awareness or sensitivity toward cultural differences is a fundamental competence for intercultural communication. Yet, intercultural miscommunication is often caused by pragmatic transfer in which non-native speakers tend to, based on their own cultural values, interpret other people‘s words (Bonnie 2001). I will distribute students’ personal surveys at the beginning of the semester to know their cultural background, current interests, and preference of class engagement (how they would like to participate in a class or what activities would be helpful to them). This method can help students to adapt to the new environment, and it’s helpful to establish rapport between a teacher and students. In addition, intercultural language education is also beneficial for students to understand socio-cultural and sociolinguistics differences between their home country and their new environment. To avoid misunderstanding and miscommunication, not only teachers but also students should compromise with others’ cultures and perspectives. I will conduct a “ Culture Clash” activity to understand each other and build credibility at the beginning of the semester. ESL classrooms (or other language classes) can be the doorway between their home society and new society, which is significant for them to familiarize and understand sociocultural and sociolinguistic differences.

2. Motivation
[The important thing for language learning is not to stop questioning, to have a great curiosity, and to keep the motivation to use English out of class.]

       I believe Critical thinking empowers compression of issues from socio-historical view and sociolinguistic view. When I took an ESL class at Kapiolani Community College, teachers gave us a lot of opportunities to discuss social issues in the U.S. like discrimination of the minority people, the NS-NNS (native speaker -nonnative speaker) dichotomy, and vernacular language extinction. I thought it was challenging but at the same time, I realized that I could maximize communicative skills with logical thoughts. “Critical thinking” gives students an opportunity to question not only the assumptions of others but also their assumptions so students can see issues from multiple perspectives and eventually they can expand their horizons (Banegas, 2016). The teaching of language through seeking real-world issues can make the foreign languages less foreign and inspire students to want to integrate relationships with the L2 community.
The essence of mobile learning is learners’ agentic use of mobile devices to create learning experiences across time and space (Zeng, 2018). I’ve been an active user of many kinds of language study apps for a long time and its convenient portable study tool lets me maintain my motivation to study after class, on the bus, and before sleeping. It was very helpful for me as an international student who actually didn’t have enough opportunities to use English in real life due to lots of limitations and issues: fear of sociolinguistic force, intercultural communication issues, and overwhelming amounts of homework. I will endeavor to tailor the students' homework and activities by using captivating apps. 1) ELSA is an app that can check a user's pronunciation by using AI and voice data of people speaking English with various accents. Usually, students hardly recognize their mispronunciation in class, but this intelligent algorithm collects and analyses an individual’s performance, and the AI coach gives them motivative advice and feedback to improve the user's pronunciation effectively. 2) Tandem is a language exchange app where language learners can learn from native speakers for free. Users can search for language exchange partners to talk to by either text or voice chat. There are valuable functions such as translation, AI grammar correction, voice recording, personal and rating policy, so users can effectively study in a fun and safe way. Users can use tools such as “blog posts” and “auto-grammar correction functions” and “viewer’s feedback” in order to make their sentences more accurate and sound more authentic. 3) Anki is a free and open-source flashcard program that uses spaced repetition and a technique from cognitive science for fast and long-lasting memorization. I believe that using these apps having innovative technologies for their homework increases and maintains students' motivation and they can develop 4 skills (reading, listening, writing, and speaking) efficiently with motivation.

3. Practical learning
[Students need to input and output actively, not passively to maximize their learning.]

       The English education system in Japan often uses the grammar-translation method. Basically, teachers follow a textbook and focus on studying the grammar of the target language. Actually, this method is used to fit the Japanese education system that pursues passing an exam. However, in the situation that people value developing communicative English skills that can pass in the global field, they should seek the learning method where students positively use the target language for communication purposes. I believe language learning is a developmental, organic process and learners do not acquire the target language in the order it is presented to them, no matter how carefully the teacher and textbook organize it (Foster, 1999). Usually, in Japanese education, input tends to be entirely led by teachers (repetitive practice, drilling) but the teacher-centric grammar instruction often bored me. Therefore, for my class, I will engage students from the outset of my lesson and briefly introduce grammar points by using topics that interest them from multimedia sources such as magazines, movies, anime, and social media in order to connect learning to the real world. In addition, incorporating Task-based learning that is mainly a conversational approach can help to boost students’ concentration. Task-based instruction is an approach to language teaching that focuses not on the language itself, but rather on what students learn through the language (e.g., The PPP model: presentation, practice, performance) so teachers can tailor the class depending on students’ needs. This method is especially appropriate for adult learners or older learners with more advanced cognitive development in their first language. For this method, ideally, I would like to conduct a collaborative class setting (e.g., JPN401 and ESL language exchange classroom setting) for students to be exposed to an authentic native speaker’s environment and learn conversational expression. The experience of this cross-cultural interaction and learning pragmatic expressions from native speakers is significantly beneficial for students to see the world from different perspectives. Furthermore, an entire procedure including personal introduction, research, analysis, reporting, presentation, answering questions, and writing reflection papers require a tremendous amount of active input and output. Students can figure out what they need to know and learn grammar inductively during the process, which will uplift their motivation and creativity and will improve their long-term memory. This practical method is student-oriented and the teacher's role is to support students as a guide. I want to balance teaching methods for students to improve either their accuracy and creativity.

Conclusion

      To teach a second language effectively, teachers need to build rapport with students through understanding cultural differences, supporting students to maintain their motivation inside and outside of the classroom by using mobile apps and providing a secure environment where students fully express themselves in their target language. As Philosopher Frank Smith writes about, Learning a language opens a door to expand learners’ horizons and develop their humanity in life, and it goes beyond memorizing words and basic grammar rules. I would like to guide students to be great active communicators and not passive learners, to achieve both academic and life goals.

Reference

Bustrum, Bonnie Jo, "Language and Power in the ESL Classroom" (2001). Masters Theses. 602. https://scholarworks.gvsu.edu/theses/602
Lai, C., & Zheng, D. (2018). Self-directed use of mobile devices for language learning beyond the classroom. ReCALL, 30(3), 299-318. doi:10.1017/S0958344017000258
Pauline Foster, Task-based learning and pedagogy, ELT Journal, Volume 53, Issue 1, January 1999, Pages 69–70, https://doi-org.eres.library.manoa.hawaii.edu/10.1093/elt/53.1.69