Teaching Philosophy

Marckwardt (1972, p.5) claims a cyclical nature of teaching methods in the phrase “the changing
winds and shifting sands” although Grittner believes in a single, unified theory of teaching in his
Bandwagons (Birckbichler, 1990). With these contending views, I have contemplated what
teaching method I should try to implement in my classroom and what teaching resources and
strategies I could employ to make my classes more successful.

During my high school years in the 1970’s English classes focused on the accurate translation
of English discourse. The learning process involved comprehensive knowledge of traditional
English grammar, syntactics, and morphology, rather than developing communicative competence
or real-life applications. Students would invest most of time and energy on reading and
grammatical competence because they aimed for getting better scores in college entrance exam.
Speaking ability was mostly built on repetitious drills of the discourse patterns that were pre-
prepared by the teacher however they had little relevance to real life language in context.

However, the 1988 Seoul Olympic Games marked a watershed moment in ELT study as the
Government stipulated that all the secondary schools should train their students the skill of using
daily English expressions. The hope was that average citizen would eventually be proficient
enough to communicate with tourists and foreigners during the Olympic Games. From this period
until the present, CLT has become the basic pedagogical approach to ELT at all levels of Korean
EFL profession. Since the new millennium started with the Internet technology, computer-assisted
language teaching helped to accelerate CLT-related teaching method and resources.

As the national curriculum clarifies, a crucial goal of English education is to cultivate in the
students the ability to understand and communicate in English about general topics in daily life
(Ministry of Education, Science & Technology, 2008, p.44). Therefore it is most critical to promote
students’ communicative competence in the meaningful and interactional process of CLT.

In this interactive learning English, it was typical to practice oral communication through the
give and take of actual conversation and to produce language for meaningful communication. But
what we have as another current trend in English education is the whole language approach.
Certified English Proficiency Test such as TOEFL,TOEIC, and IELTS are boosting this trend. In
doing so, it is necessary to have grammatical competence as well as discourse and sociolinguistic

competence. Thus the grammatical competence being revalued in language teaching vindicates the
cyclical nature of teaching method as claimed by Marckwardt.
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 In such a cyclical change in ELT situation, I do believe that no known teaching method or
approach is exclusively used for one period or can encapsulate all educational contexts and
demands of students. Indeed, we need a multi-functional teaching method to facilitate change and
enhance student learning. Teachers also have to be aware of students’ learning styles as well as
their own learning/teaching styles. Teachers should see the different learning styles as connected
because learners will have more than one learning style; teachers should also encourage their
students to stretch their approach to learning in order to become more empowered in a variety of
learning situations.

As one of teaching & learning methods is described in the national curriculum, varieties of
multimedia skills and ICT resources should be harnessed to motivate students to get involved in
learning activities and to promote a great sense of achievement in their learning (Ministry of
Education, Science & Technology, 2008, p.58). Students of these days are so-called ‘digital game
generation’ and are technology-friendly, so computer-assisted language learning (CALL) can be
easily applied to ELT classes to good effect. CALL can be used for the development of the four
language skills in foreign language learning and teaching. Computers can encourage self-
determination which is the key of intrinsic motivation, since they facilitate individualized learning
and provide anxiety-free environments.

TBLT has a large potentiality in integrating CALL into ELT with assorted communicative tasks.
Teachers in TBLT should find their roles in selecting, adapting, and/or creating the tasks
themselves and then preparing learners for tasks and providing partial demonstration of task
procedures(Richards & Rodgers, 2001, p.236). And teachers should employ a variety of
consciousness-raising techniques in order for the students to attend to or notice critical features of
the language they use and hear. Teachers should act as a facilitator to help students to work well
with tasks while monitoring their interactive works with computers in MALL-integrated classes.

Ultimately, aside from the contending views about whether the teaching method is cyclical or
unified, it is most important that the teacher has his own belief about the implementation of a
particular method or approach once he has the types of tasks and materials tailored to students’
needs and class goal. Ideally, the teacher should ensure they create and facilitate a meaningful and
successful language learning environment. They should be well-organized and prepared, ensuring
they have the most suitable technology for the task in hand combined with the most effective
pedagogic approaches. The teacher should continue to show flexibility in adopting further tasks to
ensure that student needs and learning styles are considered and adapted to.