The journey of a lifelong language learner
المعلم الذي يمشي في ظل المعبد بين مريديه لا يعطي من حكمته، بل من ايمانه ومحبته، فإن كان قد أوتي الحكمة حقا فإنه لا يدعك تلج باب حكمته بل يقودك إلى عتبة فكرك أنت.
The teacher who walks in the shadow of the temple, among his followers, gives not of his wisdom but rather of his faith and his lovingness. If he is indeed wise he does not bid you enter the house of his wisdom, but rather leads you to the threshold of your own mind. - Gibran Khalil Gibran
Gibran’s poem beautifully captures the image of a master teacher in my mind. Greatly influenced by my parents, who are both educators, I discovered my passion for teaching at a very young age. Along the journey, I’ve always been lucky enough to meet many amazing mentors who’ve equipped me and guided me through their faith and lovingness and led me to find my love for languages.
Majoring in Arabic Language and Literature in college, I obtained a scholarship from Kuwait University and studied abroad in Kuwait in my early 20’s. Taking Spanish for two years, I was selected to represent Taiwan to participate in the second Panama Youth Festival. Learning Japanese during my graduate school years, I got an internship to teach Mandarin in Japan. All these unique episodes started from my fondness of language learning and brought me to the field of world language education.
As a world language teacher, my teaching philosophy has evolved from my students’ feedback, the teaching experiences and all the different professional development I've participated in over the years. At this point, my mission is to create a culturally inclusive learning environment, use communicative approaches to increase students' proficiency, implement cultural elements to cultivate students' intercultural competence skills, and facilitate engaging themes to motivate students to be a life-long language learner and a global citizen with curiosity and compassion.
I’ve always been interested in pedagogy and language acquisition. Participating in ACTFL OPI workshop in 2016 and the following training of becoming a certified Mandarin language speaking tester and writing rater took me to a new place where I’ve stretched my focus to proficiency and assessments. I enjoy designing thematic units, bringing cultural contexts into the class and encouraging students to use the language inside and beyond the classroom. I feel grateful that I can be a teacher to witness how students keep growing along the way and thriving in learning a different language. A very nerdy side about me in terms of teaching is that I like to do research and give presentations to share with others about Mandarin language acquisition and teaching methods.
When I don't teach, I like to play musical instruments, Pipa, Erhu, Liuqin and Guzheng, I have my own one-woman-band. I am also a travel lover. I like to travel with my family - from a one hour road trip to a two months immersion trip, name it and I welcome them all!
one woman band.MP4adapted from Peng Xiuwen's Qin Terracotta Warriors Fantasia sec.2
A fun fact about me is that I am a fan of video games. My biggest pride is that I won the first prize on Tetris three times in a row in a local community competition event. Well, that's why you can always find some positive excitement in my class!
林華一 Hwai Lin صباح لين