Running Head: MY PHILOSOPHY OF TEACHING TESL

My Philosophy of Teaching TESL

Marinda McDonald
Westminster College

Running Head: MY PHILOSOPHY OF TEACHING TESL

As a teacher, I want to help my students make connections through improving their

linguistic and communication skills in English. I believe that it is important to adjust instruction
to the needs of students in my classroom, and I feel that by drawing from a variety of
philosophies and methods that I may be able to meet the different needs of my
students. Students may have different goals throughout their educational career, and use of
different learning styles, such as visual, auditory, and tactile kinesthetic learners. For this reason,
I feel variation is important to my teaching style for my classroom. I want to include
opportunities for students to learn in various ways (such as lecture, discussion, activities, group
work, etc.)

Student participation is an important part of my teaching philosophy. I agree with

Vygotsky that communication is important to the development of a students knowledge. To
nurture interaction among students in the classroom, I will combine small group work and
discussions, which can give students more opportunities to speak and become more comfortable
speaking in front of the class. This is an important part of the affective filter theory (Freeman &
Freeman, 2014), where the teacher helps to promote a low anxiety situation in the
classroom. Students who work together also have the opportunity to learn from each
other. Working together allows for an exchange of ideas and perspectives. In addition, through
interaction with one another, more capable students can provide scaffolding to those who are
weaker, helping these students to improve. (Freeman & Freeman, 2014)

Through the group work and variation in my classes, I hope to create a relaxed
atmosphere in the classroom, where students can express ideas freely and develop their self-

Running Head: MY PHILOSOPHY OF TEACHING TESL

confidence as English speakers. Additionally, I hope that through these techniques students will
find the course interesting and exciting. When students are more interested in a course, they are
also more likely to be motivated to reach their learning goals. In the end, my goal in teaching is
to help students to reach their language learning goals (and beyond!)

I plan to incorporate technology into the classroom to help my students meet their
learning goals. There are many types of technology and apps that can be used in teaching ESL,
which is important to assisting the learning of my students. For example with the upper grades
online journals or blogs are great use for learning how to write, and hopefully the affective filter
is lowered enough for them to allow peer feedback. For lower grades there are many apps and
programs available for learning letters, sounds, sight words and more. I am a great proponent of
technology, but human interaction is still essential so technology would be just supplemental. I
do believe that technology can help make a language learning more interesting for
students. Many students tend to respond well to video clips, audio files, and other technology
that fits into daily lessons. As I further my studies in teaching English as a second language, I
hope to further develop my philosophy and continue learning different theories and methods to
better help my students and increase my own knowledge of how one learns and acquires
language.

Running Head: MY PHILOSOPHY OF TEACHING TESL

References

Freeman, D., & Freeman, Y. (2014). Essential Linguistics. Portsmouth: Heinemann.