Teaching

Through my time in the LTS program, I have developed a multitude of skills and competencies to serve me and my future students in classes and contexts to come. More than this, I have been given the opportunity to formulate a developed idea of who I am as an educator, and what I hold most important in my instruction. These core beliefs have guided me in every aspect and area of competency in teaching; they have informed the lessons I design, the instruction I give, and the research that I explore. This has been the blessing of this program–that I leave not only with the knowledge to be successful in my teaching, but my understanding of my own identity as a teacher. 

The first artifact that I have included is my statement of beliefs, as developed in the LT 548 Curriculum Design class and have since modified to further reflect my core teaching beliefs. The beliefs set forth in this artifact are reflective of not only what I have learned from my time as an educator, but also from my time as a student. This document is representative of what I have seen aid my students in being successful in the classroom, as well as what has helped me be successful in the classroom (or sometimes, what I would have needed to succeed). This statement of beliefs covers a number of concepts integral to my language teaching and language teaching design. One such concept is the impact of student motivation on learning, and the antecedents of motivation as defined by Lourdes Ortega (2009) in Understanding Second Language Acquisition. These motivational variables– integrativeness (genuine interest to learn the language and join the language community), orientations (reasons for learning the language), and attitudes (toward the L2 community, teachers, curriculum, etc.) – impact student motivation, and all must be examined and addressed when working to determine what is motivating students, or what is failing to motivate them (Ortega, 2009). I also address the collaborative nature of language teaching and language learning between instructor and student, and my personal opinion of the role that the instructor took within that collaboration to foster student motivation in the classroom. This desire to encourage student motivation in turn contributed to the inclusion of other beliefs, such as student choice in the classroom, personalization of learning, and needs-based learning. The latter then opened the discussion of the importance of languaculture (Brown & Lee, 2015) in the classroom, and the use of materials and concepts that hold cultural significance to the target language. The importance of cross-cultural awareness and languaculture in the classroom, as well as the miscommunications or misunderstandings that can come when cultural awareness is neglected are emphasized in De Capua’s (2018) Culture myths: Applying second language research to classroom teaching.

The final two artifacts included here are reflections on teaching experiences, both carefully selected because of a similarity in their contexts to show the growth in my teaching throughout my time in the program, and how these experiences have impacted the way I teach now, and will continue to teach in the future. The first reflection discusses the conversation circles that I led during my time working with El Cultural. Student motivation, as mentioned above, was an incredibly salient factor in the day-to-day functioning of these conversation circles; these classes met online, in a time difference that meant that students were often beginning the class well into the evening. Due to this, classes tended towards being more quiet and unresponsive as a whole, and much of my energy and efforts each class were spent trial-and-erroring what strategies would successfully convince students to participate that day. This was a teaching experience that highlighted my lack of experience in the field, but it also made incredibly clear to me what my strengths were, and where I needed to spend the most time on self-improvement. 

The second artifact is a teaching reflection done as part of the LT 537 Second Language Teaching Practice course, or “Talking with Ducks.” Talking with Ducks, like my class at El Cultural, was a conversation circle. However, this course was held in-person instead of online, and the class’s weekly lessons were divided up, with each week being assigned to be led by a specific group, with feedback and brainstorming from the whole class. These many opportunities for collaboration and peer feedback polished and improved the final lessons we used, and the motivation and engagement from the students was always incredibly high. This was a teaching experience that vastly improved my confidence in leading a class, engaging with students, and adapting to the unexpected. This was a course that would have prepared me fantastically for my time at El Cultural, would that they had happened in the opposite order! As it were, it was a teaching experience that I was able to begin with a clear understanding of what skills I needed to improve and what skills I needed to develop entirely, and was able to look back with a clear understanding of how I had grown.

I have seen so much growth in my teaching just in the year that I have spent in the LTS program, and I still feel that I am at the beginning of my path as an educator. These artifacts demonstrate my passion to continued professional development, and my desire to learn all that I can from my peers.

References

Brown, H.D. & Lee, H. (2015). Teaching by principles: An integrative approach to language pedagogy (4th edition). Pearson Education, Inc. 

DeCapua, A. (2018). Culture myths: Applying second language research to classroom teaching. University of Michigan Press. 

 Ortega. (2009). Understanding second language acquisition. Hodder Education.