Through a methodology course in my TEFL Certificate training, I learned that teachers with extensive teaching theory knowledge will still teach how they were taught rather than how the teaching theories point towards teaching. Through reflection in videos and mock-teaching in the program, I could more closely match what I thought I was doing in the classroom to what I am actually doing. In general, my life philosophy for influencing others is that one can never make another person believe or think something. But you can present other facts or information to help convince them to form their own beliefs. How does this play into teaching language? I might not be able to actually make any of my students think and speak in English, but I can create a context for them to absorb as much language and use it. This environment can be categorized in three ways; teacher talk, group interaction, and real-world reflected tasks. 

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     When I was a student, the teacher was a strong authority figure and whatever they said was the law of the class. For my language courses, I prefer to be a resource to students and facilitate learning. I make sure that my teacher talk is language that students themselves can use in English. If most of my English in the classroom is something only teachers say, then I will have a lot of students who are very good at responding to classroom situations. Unless the course is for future ESOL instructors, I prefer to use more conversational style language during instruction and feedback. This way, the input the students receive is also something they can transfer directly into their activities and outside classroom conversations. For example, if a student asks a clarification question, instead of a teacher answer of “Yes, make sure to use an adjectival phrase instead of a simple noun.”, I can respond with “That’s a very interesting question.”  Then cast the question out to the class to discuss in 30 seconds with a partner. This provides students with the opportunity to share what they already know and have most/all the students speaking at once rather than just one teacher voice in a similar amount of time.  

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     The previous point lends itself to the matter of classroom interaction. If I spend half to most of the class time using whole class interaction, there will be mainly one speaker at a time. If I create activities and tasks in pair and group work, more students are talking at the same time while I monitor around the classroom and engaging with all the groups (Long & Porter, 1985). As a language instructor, I am not the one who needs to practice the language, it’s the students.  

 

     The final category for my language instruction is the use of tasks. According to Nation and Newton (2009) meaningful input should have a large quantity with students having background knowledge and context clues to understand more than 90% of the content. After having meaningful input, students are given a context in a real world setting to complete a task. Tasks are where students are working together to complete a goal that reflects a situation that could happen in the real world. They can use the language that they are currently studying to negotiate meaning to reach the task goal. One example of a task I’ve used in the classroom is for the language function of giving information and advice. Students were divided into groups to create cultural norms of an island designated as a college retreat for students from all countries. This blended their reading homework and previous activities’ content on cultural expectations, taboos, and language chunks on giving advice and instruction. After creating the cultural norms, they welcomed other groups from the class to their island. The students learned the cultural expectations of each island. 

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     Through a focused attention on teacher talk, varying classroom interactions, and real-world applicable activities and tasks, my language learning students will be given the context and environment to play with and create English language while reaching a goal through joy. With my naturally reflective personality, I continue to find ways to adapt to the students in my class and the goals for the semester. I also love to build relationships and show this through my conversational teacher talk. This in turn, has provided students with a relaxed atmosphere to try new ways of using English and challenge themselves in engaging peer interactions. 

 

References 

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Long, M. H., & Porter, P. A. (1985). Group Work, Interlanguage Talk, and Second Language Acquisition. TESOL Quarterly, 19(2), 207. doi:10.2307/3586827 

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Nation, I.S.P. and J. Newton. (2009). Teaching EFL/ESL listening and speaking. New York: Routledge.