Teaching Philosophy What is the role of a language teacher in light of the three teaching processes?

My teaching philosophy views the role of a language teacher in a student-centered classroom to be similar to a coach of a sports team. A good coach knows each individual player on the team well, including his skill level, his individual needs, his learning style, his weak area requiring practice, and his progress in learning the new concept and skill at any time. Likewise, a good language teacher will teach from the students perspectives, always adjusting presentation and practice from the students point of view, and constantly doing test and assessment to gauze the students understanding.

At Presentation stage, the language teacher, just like a coach in a sport team, will first make sure he has the classs attention. Giving clear explanation with repetition in various ways will make the new material more accessible to the students. To ensure their understanding, he will illustrate with examples and give situations when the new term can be properly used while doing comprehension-check constantly at the same time. He will also enforce students shortterm memory using practice. An example is teaching Chinese terms for various clothing items and accessory in a high school class, and how to use them in sentences. The presentation can be done in power point with visual aid, such as pictures along with words for shirt (), pants ( ), hat (), skirt () and glasses. Using what the students in class wear, in addition to the power point, as examples is easy to get their attention, clear in perception since they can hear and see, easy for them to understand, and help in enforcing short-term memory.

At Practice stage, a language teacher will design a valid activity with the target goal to make sure the activity is related to the intended goal. Prior teaching before the practice is helpful for students pre-learning. To ensure the activity is high in volume, the practice has to have enough frequency of repetition. A not-too-difficult activity which also accommodates different levels of students will be high in both success-orientation and heterogeneity. Certain teacher assistance during the practice when students are showing signs of difficulty will help enforce their perception and understanding, while maintaining their interest. For example, to practice Chinese terms for clothing and accessory as well as how to use them in sentences, the teacher can design a Jeopardy-like games. After showing on the board, with no picture nor English explanation, whoever raises hand and successfully says will win. The teacher then can throw an Airhead candy to the winner as a reward, which will keep the class highly motivated and engaged. The same term can still be repeated many times by mixing them among other terms to give other students chances to succeed.

The Test and Assessment stage can be intertwined with both the Presentation stage and Practice stage. Asking students questions during the presentation will allow the teacher to decide if the material needs further explanation, perhaps in different ways. The constant comprehension-check provides a good sense to the teacher where the students are and what direction he should take next.

In a student-centered language classroom, a good teacher makes effective presentations, and conducts valid and success-oriented practice activities with enough pre-learning and various repetitions, reaching high in volume and heterogeneity while maintaining the class interested. In

the meantime, the teacher constantly checks on the students current progress and comprehension to make adjustments for different teaching processes with flexibility. Just like a coach in a sports team, a language teacher will always teach with the students perspectives in mind. Only with this philosophy will a teacher be able to ensure reaching the ultimate goal of his students learning gain.