beliefs & Practices

MAKIKO YAMAMOTO BORDER | GRADUATE PORTFOLIO

The process of my own language learning has been synonymous with the development of Intercultural Competence (ICC). Having grown up in a homogenous community in a vastly monolingual, monoracial country, understanding other cultures and navigating differences required me to be able to contextualize and articulate both my inner- and outer- world in which language skill as a social tool has been indispensable. In this process, I became a participant of many different communities and have experienced the joy of discovery of ‘otherness’, learned to relativize myself, and made sense of my expanding world through honing my language skill.

Because of these experiences, my instructional goal is to inspire and guide students to become autonomous, life-long learners where they will choose to take a self-governing role in the many divergent communities of their lives by using language skills as a social tool.

How I Promote Proficiency

I believe that context is essential in foreign language learning where classroom can be a legitimate site for authentic experience. This can be achieved by providing materials and activities that learners can engage intellectually and purposefully by using the target linguistic features. Adding technology and virtual environment to a communicative driven curriculum can provide authentic context in which learners are pushed to use the language with purpose.

How I engage and motivate learners

My role as a language instructor is to facilitate learners' communication in the classroom in which target language is viewed as a vehicle for communication. I provide authentic context and tasks that are relevant and meaningful for learners in which they collaboratively and critically negotiate meaning to carry out tasks by using the target language. Evaluation is based not only on accuracy, but also on fluency in that learners receive constant validation to use the language for the purpose of being able to communicate effectively.

how I teach grammar and vocabulary

I view language as a social tool. In my language classroom, I want learners to learn language by using it to communicate. I provide contexts in which learners learn linguistic features to achieve non-linguistic, divergent goals.

how I raise intercultural awareness

I view culture as a dynamic set of practices rather than as a body of shared information. Learning culture involves engaging with this complexity and knowing how to relativize self in light of 'otherness'. Comparing and contrasting self and other by using the communicative modes can be a solid starting point for a cultural content in which culture is taught not only as knowledge but also as “the strategic competence needed to function within it” (Lord, 2014, p.26)