Since I was a child in the first grade, English has been compulsory in all subjects. It was different from elective interest classes that one could choose to take. Although it was less demanding than Chinese and mathematics, it did run through my childhood learning path. In elementary school, I always needed to understand the use of learning English. Every student took it as a task required by parents and teachers to complete. Also, because I needed to find out the reasons for learning it, I felt bored and lost in learning this language I would not use daily. Later, in junior high school, I met a teacher, Mrs.Xue. Her lively teaching style gradually changed my attitude and views on language learning and paved the way for my idea of studying abroad.

In the classroom, through various small interactive activities or discussions, she guided the students step by step to discover the charm of English. I gradually found the goal of learning it, such as watching foreign movies or shows, reading foreign books, and learning a different culture. Unlike the rigid classrooms in the past, her teaching method was humorous and exciting, and she paid more attention to the students' language output. She would give timely praise and encouragement when students said it out loud. In the general environment of exam-oriented education, our English learning is mostly used to get high scores in exams. 

                     In other words, we focused on studying these three aspects-reading, writing, and grammar. It gradually led to the fact that although the students had a wealth of theoretical knowledge in their minds, they could not express it well through communication. I was also frustrated with language teaching under the domestic exam-oriented education system. However, what was gratifying was that with her teaching methodology, the students in our class were more willing to speak the language instead of learning "silent English." In LT536-Teaching Philosophy Statement, I was steadfast in my recognition of the communicative language approach (Brown & Lee, 2015), and I chose to integrate it into my future teaching. I believe spoken and written language are the bridges used to communicate between different cultures. If the purpose of our language learning is not to communicate, then such learning will obliterate the most fundamental soul of the language.

                     In the LT539 tutoring practice assignment, I worked with my teammate, Laurel, whose L1 was English and majored in Chinese, and would start teaching ESL in Korean soon. To begin with, I gave her a couple of topics to choose from, such as introducing herself, her family, the hobby she liked to do during her spare time, favorite food, and allowed her to think and organize her speech for 2 minutes. Then she needed to deliver a 2 to 3 minutes free speech around her chosen topic. During the listening, besides the main segmental issue, I also noticed that when she spoke certain words that she was unsure about, her voice would naturally decrease, and I could barely hear her. This is a habit that many language learners have. When it comes to utterances that one is unsure or thinks may be wrong, one will subconsciously dare not say it and become timid. It is a more common situation in China. Some students do not even speak out because they fear making mistakes. However, the meaning of language lies in communication, so when learning a language, we should not only pay attention to grammar or writing skills but also build learners' confidence so that they dare to speak and communicate. So in the following diagnosing and demonstration, and correction exercises, I used different methods to encourage her to speak up. For example, when talking about "chi, ci," I would tell her the various meanings of other words represented by the two sounds by telling jokes and practicing the pronunciation skills of these two sounds in a relaxed and pleasant process. I hope that increasing students' willingness to communicate (McCroskey & Baer, 1985) will help output and improve language proficiency.

                     When designing the LT539 teaching demo, I thought about using gesture and body-movement (TPR activity) to drive the students to move together and gesture to the items corresponding to each pronunciation to assist memory, such as "u" and "house." In addition, for language learning, I also liked the student-center approach and building students' critical thinking through active learning and discovering learning-eight principle (Yerian, 2022). Such physical activities could help students remember, especially when learning vocabulary and pronunciation. Let us take this activity as an example. Initially, I just used TPR and pictures to show everyone and practice pronunciation, but I had more new ideas after more learning. After looking at the pictures and analyzing the pronunciation skills, we could arrange for students to enter the discussion group and then discuss which words could match these sounds and promote memory through TPR. After the discussion, each group could send a representative to present their discussion results to all the students, and the teacher could also give feedback. Group activities gave students more opportunities to discuss and think freely instead of just focusing on the teacher giving lectures.

In addition, we also need to learn from one another in teaching and adjust our follow-up course plans by observing in time and reflecting on and summarizing various situations that occurred during and after class. At the same time, the teacher can also improve the existing lesson plan to support students' language learning.

References

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

McCroskey, J.C. and Baer, J.E. (1985). Willingness to communicate: The construct and its measurement. Paper presented at the meeting of the Annual Convention of the Speech Communication Association, Denver, CO. 

Yerian, K. (2022). 8 Key Criteria for Lesson Design. [Unpublished]. Department of Linguistics, University of Oregon.