MY PHILOSOPHY OF TEACHING EFL 1

My Philosophy of Teaching EFL

Student Name: Weijun Shen (Lily)

University of California Extension: <TESOL Portfolio>

12/03/2017
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My Philosophy of Teaching EFL(P1)

My philosophy of teaching EFL stems from my 10 years' of learning experience in

China. My major is English and it is now my fourth year of university study. This is

my second quarter in the 28-unit TESOL program. In this statement, I hope to share

my philosophy of teaching, including my educational background that has prepared

me for the English teaching, my goals, my beliefs about the best approaches and

methods for EFL teaching, and experiences that I have had which exemplify my

beliefs.

I am English major student in Hangzhou Normal University. In the past few years, I

have participated in many activities related to English teaching. For example, I taught

primary school students every Sunday as a volunteer teacher. Also, I've been an

assistant teacher in a language school for 3 months. However, what made me finally

decide to be a high school English teacher as a future job was my teaching experience

with my younger cousins. Two years ago, their parents asked me if I could help them

with learning English for a month in that summer holiday. I agreed because I knew

that one of my cousins would take the National Higher Education Entrance

Examination (Gaokao) the year after. Both of my cousins had been studying English

for 7 years at that time, but their educational backgrounds and learning types were

really different from each other. Although I was not so sure about what to do, I just

did what I thought would be helpful to them. For example, before every class, I would
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play an English song that I like and tell them the story behind the song. If I forgot to

play the song one day, they would definitely inform me. Every day, I would analyze a

short article and ask them to recite it the day after. They felt relaxed in my class. All in

all, the result was not bad. They both had some improvement, especially the older one,

his score was 40 points higher than before.

While teaching them, I noticed there are many problems in our traditional English

education. Students are not motivated at the beginning of the class. Most of the

lessons are test-oriented and lower achievers can often be ignored in a language class.

Teachers tend to call those more cooperative students to answer questions. Only half

of the class can get efficient practice in class. I want to teach at a high school in China

in the future and solve these problems in my own teaching. This is my first

educational goal. If I could achieve it in the future, I would share my experience with

others. If possible, I would like to find my own teaching community and make a little

difference.

I strongly believe in the idea that language classes should be communicative.

According to Larsen-Freeman & Anderson(2013), the most obvious characteristic of

Communicative Language Teaching(CLT) is that almost everything is done with a

communicative intent. Students use the language a great deals through communicative

activities such as role plays, games, and problem-solving tasks (Larsen-Freeman &
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Anderson, 2013). First, CLT lowers learners' affective filter by creating a more

relaxing learning environment and a sense of group in the classroom (Jack & Thomas,

2011). Second, CLT promotes more in-class participation than the traditional grammar

translation method. It provides more time for students to practice target expressions.

Effective practice in class is of great importance for EFL class, because, unlike ESL

learners, EFL learners don't have plenty opportunities to practice those expressions in

real life. Activities that are truly communicative have three features in common:

information gap, choice, and feedback (Larsen-Freeman & Anderson, 2013). The

basic idea of information gap is that students hold different information or roles. It

can be designed as a pair work, group work or even an activity for the whole class.

Then, in a true communicative activity, students can choose their expressions

according to rules and context. Learners can get immediate feedback from their peers.

Scaffolding is a very important technique in EFL teaching. In the construction world,

a scaffold is a temporary support for works while building a new edifice. In

constructivist teaching, scaffolding is used to help the learner construct knowledge

(Diaz-Rico, 2008). First, scaffolding can help learners to achieve a task by dividing

the task into smaller, manageable units. To make students feel that they are able to do

the task is essential in teaching. Second, scaffolding can help teachers manage the

class better. Step-by-step teaching benefits both learners and teachers. The teacher can

have a more clear map about her/his teaching if she/he scaffolds the lesson.
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One of the biggest problems in a traditional class is that lower achievers can be

neglected. This phenomenon is not caused by one or two EFL classes, it is caused by

all the EFL teaching classes students had before. In traditional classes, teachers tend

to call on those cooperating students to answer questions. Students who don't want to

participate in the activity may just sit in the back of the class and we all know that the

teacher hardly ever calls them to answer questions. How can scaffolding help this

kind of situation? First, a motivated warm-up activity can help students focus on the

lesson. A good brainstorm question can activate learners' background knowledge.

Second, achievable small tasks could increase their confidence. If they could

participate in most of the practices in class and feel good while learning. They will be

no longer so negative in class (Larsen-Freeman & Anderson, 2013).

I have observed the communicative teaching approach effectively employed in many

language classes in UCR Extension (Larsen-Freeman & Anderson, 2013). A particular

course was the Oral Skill Development class I observed this quarter. This was a

speaking class for advanced English learners in UCR Extension.The topic for that

week was A Role Play on the Dakota Access Pipeline (Ursula, 2017 ). The teacher

divided the students into several groups and assigned each group with different roles.

The 5 groups were Members of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe, Energy Transfer

Partners, Iowa farmers , Our Childrens Trust and North Americas Building Trades
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Unions. Students worked in groups to study about their roles further. They

communicated with representatives of other groups on the second day of class. For the

third day, they discussed the thesis within the group and everyone finished a written

speech for the fourth day. On the last day, students, representing five different groups,

must convince the president (the teacher) that the project should be abandoned or

allowed to proceed.

This was a typical communicative class. Developing communicative skills was the

main focus. The teacher provided sufficient opportunity for students to use the target

expressions they learned in the class. Group work and communicative activities were

used very often in this class. Students were assigned different roles in the activity and

they were encouraged to use their own ideas in practicing.

Scaffolding was the second typical feature I found in language classes in America

(Diaz-Rico, 2008). I observed several online English lessons on Coursera this year.

Let's take a 3-minute speaking lesson from Amalia B. Stephens as an example

(Stephens, 2016). The topic for that lesson was small talk. The teacher first briefly

introduced the objectives of the lesson and the reason for learners to practice small

talk. A video of an example dialogue was showed. Scaffolding questions were

frequently used and the instructions were clear and practicable. For example, at the

beginning of the lesson, the teacher asked students to thought about how they began

conversations in their first language. Then, she told students that the steps and topics
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of small talk were similar in different languages. She briefly explained the steps of

common small talk and analyzed the example dialogue step by step. She built the new

knowledge on learners old knowledge and helped students achieve the task step by

step.

Conclusion

In conclusion, I think that English teachers in China should have higher expectations

for students' abilities. They should encourage students to produce new and fresh ideas

in the class. English learners in China are actually more active and creative than we

used to think. They are willing to show their competence in the class. The biggest

problem might be that they are not motivated enough in the class. Sometimes, the

class is too mechanical or too easy, and they don't want to participate in it. Sometimes,

the task is too difficult. They don't want to try because they feel that they can not

achieve it. Communicative teaching and scaffolding need to be valued in our language

classes in China.
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Reference

1. Larsen-Freeman, D. & Anderson, M. (2013). Techniques and Principles in

Language Teaching 3rd edition. (7), Oxford university press.

2. Diaz-Rico, L. T. (2012). Strategies for teaching english learners. (5), Pearson

Schweiz

3. Ursula Wolfe-Rocca, (2017) Standing with Standing Rock: A Role Play on the

Dakota Access PipelineZinn Education Project

4. Amalia B. Stephens, (2016). Speak English Professionally In Person Online On the

Phone, Retrieved from

https://www.coursera.org/learn/speak-english-professionally/lecture/WF8fD/small-tal

k-conversational-vocabulary